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I've got a real problem with Saturn's new cross-over SUV. The vehicle looks like a potential winner. Except...

Sam Abuelsamid from AutoBlog: One of the many unfortunate casualties of General Motors' financial apocalypse is the loss of the Kappa platform, the small, rear-wheel drive architecture underpinning the Pontiac Solstice and Saturn Sky. With both of those brands being discontinued and no plans to migrate any models over to GM's surviving brands, the slow-selling roadsters will simply disappear within the next year. Another disappointment to GM fans was the transformation of the Chevy Volt from con...

Some friendly words for Ron Zarrella and company. Really!

With the environmental situation as volatile as it is, more emphasis should be put on developing better small cars. Last September, Bob Boruff, Saturn's vice president of manufacturing, lost his fight with cancer.

Back in the 1960s, when Detroit seemed to rule the automotive world, cars were king. They were big. They were powerful. They were stylish. Most important, they were profitable. Then came the Japanese, installing lean-manufacturing systems in non-union plants down South.

New models give the withering GM division one last chance to succeed.

The closest to the Harley experience was probably what Saturn once had. Back in the days of the SL, you were a "Saturn owner" or you weren’t. It wasn't necessarily a differentiation between the models. If you bought a Saturn, you were de facto part of the club.

Jerry Flint, a former Forbes senior editior who now writes for Forbes' online venture, takes a look at what he thinks is wrong with Saturn and how the company can be fixed.

It doesn't matter whether Farmer Jack makes a penny on every tomato it sells, as long as the grocery chain overall turns a profit. And in theory, it shouldn't matter to GM whether it earns a few bucks on every Chevrolet Cavalier or Saturn coupe. If GM has an effective top-to-bottom business plan relying on earnings from a broad product lineup, that should be good enough.

The public is being asked to believe 2005 and the North American International Auto Show in Detroit mark a new beginning for GM's Saturn brand. That's one way to look at it. But it would be more accurate to say Saturn, as it was conceived and operated for its first 15 years, no longer exists. About the only thing that has survived is the name.

Imagine this: Your business is in trouble, but you come up with a hot product. Any smart businessperson would exploit this success, pump money into the new winner and expand its product lineup. So why is the management of General Motors starving its best success story of the past two decades?

When Roger Smith launched Saturn (remember: this was back in the day when NASA rockets were still an event, not something that garners about as much interest as the running of an inter-urban bus system) he said the goal was to be competitive with the Japanese automakers, which were, at that time, kicking the collective assets of the then-Big Three.

The saga of Saturn reads like a biblical parable: The youngest son, initially indulged by the family, is later cast out into the wilderness by the father (also known as GM).

In late March, I purchased a new 2000 Saturn SL2. I therefore perked up about a month later when Saturn aired a commercial on national television featuring two cars being driven on a wide open road in an unidentified western state, one by an older male, the other by a younger couple.

This company will make one great Harvard Case Study some day. Right now, Saturn, Cadillac, and Yellowstone all deserve some critical comments.