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G. Chambers Williams III from the Tennessean: While dealers still hope Saturn might be saved, GM expects all the dealerships will be closed by the end of next year, if not sooner. Asked if GM would seek another buyer, Thomas Pyden, a GM spokesman, said: "I guess never say never, but our focus now is on implementing the wind-down agreements and working with our Saturn retailers to be as transparent and cooperative as possible through the process." The disintegrating Penske deal was especially bru...

The Bush administration will offer General Motors and Chrysler loans totaling $17.4 billion in return for strict conditions mirroring those proposed by Senate Republicans last week. Those terms include not only the conditions agreed to by congressional Democrats, but new limits sought on the UAW contracts including matching wage and benefits of foreign automakers with U.S. plants by the end of next year. The money will come from the $700-billion bailout of the financial industry and the first lo...

Nineteen years after emerging as a "Different Kind of Car Company," Saturn is headed for oblivion. A moment of silence, please, because Saturn once represented a new beginning for General Motors, which hoped the brand would catch the ascendant Japanese. The experiment fizzled and instead became an object lesson in what happens when a company fails to back up bold thinking with bold execution. Saturn was a stroke of marketing brilliance. Not only had GM created a standalone company with its own f...

Don Hammonds from Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Saturn's purchase by Mr. Penske may be its best asset. "The Penske organization owning the distribution and name is a major, major plus. He has a golden touch with anything he's connected with," Detroit-based independent auto analyst Tom Libby said. The major challenge, he said, is giving a customer a compelling reason to buy a Saturn rather than another vehicle. "If the answer is superior customer experience, I'd respond by saying that it is not clear ...

Kat Koonce loves her Saturns. She owns three, and has pictures of them on SaturnFans.com, where she is one of almost 2,500 Saturn devotees who've posted photo albums of their vehicles. General Motors hasn't officially announced the end of Saturn, but in a restructuring plan submitted to Congress, the automaker said it would concentrate resources on four core brands -- Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick and GMC. That leaves Saturn, along with GM's Pontiac, Saab and Hummer brands, with a dim future.

Chris Isidore from CNNMoney.com: The Bush administration said Friday it might use taxpayer dollars set aside to bail out banks and Wall Street firms to keep troubled U.S. automakers out of bankruptcy. The administration's announcement, which reverses its previous position on how to help the auto industry, effectively revives a bailout proposal killed by senators of the president's own party just hours earlier. That plan had the support of congressional Democrats and the White House, but would ha...

Tim Higgins from the Detroit Free Press: On Tuesday, General Motors Co. thought it had a deal to sell its storied brand Saturn. But Wednesday afternoon, a day before the deal was to be announced, the Detroit automaker was blindsided by the news that businessman Roger Penske's deal to acquire Saturn had collapsed. The news sent shockwaves through the GM organization. While dealers still hope Saturn might be saved, GM expects all the dealerships to be closed by the end of next year, if not sooner....

Sharon Terlep and John Stoll from the Wall Street Journal: A deal to save General Motors's Saturn brand fell through after former race-car driver Roger Penske unexpectedly abandoned a bid to buy its network of dealers, prompting GM to say it would shut the operation down. The Penske announcement came as a "huge surprise" to dealers, GM and Treasury Department officials, according to people familiar with the matter. The government had pressed for GM to jettison money-losing brands Saturn, Pontiac...

Bryan Lavoilette from Michigan Live: Don't be surprised if General Motors' deal with Penske Automotive is back on within the next week or two. Penske backed out of its plans with GM to buy the ringed-planet brand when the automaker which was going to build its cars nixed the deal. On Friday, several outlets reported that Renault-Nissan's board had rejected a plan where the company's Samsung affiliate would build cars for Saturn. GM had agreed to build vehicles for Saturn through 2011, but after ...

From All Cars All the Time: If GM were to pair Saturn with BPG, it is my belief that Saturn would aim for smaller vehicles. Corsa, Meriva and Astra are names that come to mind when looking over Opel's lineup. Now you might argue that the Astra hasn't done very well here in the States, however I maintain that it isn't so much the car's fault as it was a hurried, low cost effort to bring it here and a scant marketing budget once the car arrived. When I test drove the Astra for a week, only one per...

Gene Racz from MyCentralJersey.com: DCH Auto Group is closing its Saturn of Brunswick dealership on Route 1 and Saturn of Eatontown outlet on Feb. 14. The closures of the two DCH Saturn locations come on the heels of reports that General Motors is looking to possibly discontinue some of its brands — among them Saturn. "We're obviously very saddened, it was a hard decision by our corporate office, but it was basically: Blame it on GM," said Lisa Ocasio, sales manager at DCH Saturn of Brunswick,...

The U.S. Senate late last night voted against passage of a bill to give an emergency bridge loan to the Detroit automakers – specifically GM and Chrysler – paving the way for the eventual collapse of the domestic automobile industry and sending this country's already teetering financial situation to the brink of disaster. The inaction - a blatantly malicious display of placing political self-interests before the best interests of the nation – was orchestrated by Senators Richard Shelby (R-...

Chris Isidore from CNNMoney.com: On Tuesday, General Motors and Chrysler LLC have to submit plans to the government that show how they plan to turnaround their troubled companies. It won't be an easy task. The two struggling automakers, which received approval for $17.4 billion in federal loans in December ($13.4 billion for GM and $4 billion for Chrysler) are required by the terms of their agreement to show that they can be viable for the long-term. Otherwise, the government could recall the lo...

Justin Hyde and Todd Spangler from the Detroit Free Press: Congressional Democrats and the White House reached agreement Tuesday night on the outlines of a $15-billion rescue of General Motors and Chrysler even as key Senate Republicans promised a filibuster of the draft proposal for not requiring more sacrifices from the UAW. Lawmakers and administration officials said while the final language of the bill was still being written, the House was expected to take up the bill Wednesday morning. A s...

Bob Cox from the Star Telegram: To hear auto industry analysts tell it, one thing General Motors must do in order to survive is eliminate Conrad Holt's business and many others like it. Holt owns Saturn of DFW, the three Tarrant County dealerships that sell GM's relatively small, unprofitable Saturn brand, which many analysts say should probably just go away. Not Holt. He wants to see the Saturn brand and his business survive. "I feel like Saturn is part of the solution, not part of the problem,...