Saturn RIP

I was saddened yesterday to learn that the deal General Motors struck with the Penske group to save their Saturn brand had fallen through, and so now will be phased out.

The first thing I did when I found out I was pregnant 14 years ago was tell my family.

The second thing I did was shop for a new car to replace the 11-year-old clunker I'd been driving. As we live in Los Angeles, we spend a lot of time in our vehicles, and I wanted my baby to be safe.

I couldn't afford my first choice Volvo, which has always enjoyed a reputation for safety... but as it turned out, the next best thing was in my price range: a 1996 Saturn SL1.

Safety was not the only thing I found appealing about Saturn: I loved the fact that shopping for one was as simple as buying a department store dress. The price on the sticker was the price you paid (what a concept!); no one ever asked you "What would it take to sell you this car today?"

I loved my Saturn's polymer body, which resisted dents so well that a decade later, the car still looked new. I loved the fact that maintenance on the vehicle was simple and cheap. I especially loved meeting other owners, one of whom was a tow-truck operator who purchased his Saturn after seeing how well they fared in crashes. 

And I got a kick out of the fact that buying the car was like a celebration: Before driving it off the lot, my salesman took a Polaroid photo of me and my new SL1, which they dated and posted on the wall of the dealership, along with similar shots of every person who purchased one of their cars. They invited me to come back to auto maintenance clinics and annual barbecues for Saturn owners... and the factory in Spring Hill held a yearly "reunion," inviting owners from all over the country to come and party at their facility.

"I think it's the Macintosh of cars," noted an Apple-using friend. She was right; back then, Saturn had the same kind of cachet as Macs. They were special.

It was the best car I ever owned. I told everyone I met that I would never buy another car brand, and followed automotive news to track the progress of a rumored Saturn SUV.

GM had created the Saturn division as a means of competing with Japanese companies like Toyota, which eventually overtook them in US sales. It was a radical concept for the company that had invented planned obsolescence and interchangeable body parts: The brand was started from scratch with just a couple of well-designed, small models that had no relationship at all with Chevrolet, Buick or any of the company's other brands. The vehicles were assembled in a spanking new factory in Spring Hill, Tennessee, far away from the adversarial labor culture in Detroit -- and most radically, workers and management worked together as a team. The result was that the workforce seemed to take personal pride in the product.

However, the experiment was never fully supported by all the folks in Detroit, and over the years, GM moved away from many of the innovations that made Saturn special. Eleven years after buying my SL1, it had been folded back into the GM umbrella: there were now several different models, but the chassis were shared with other GM brands. The polymer panels were gone. Worst of all, early editions of their VUE SUV had been recalled for rollover problems.

When it came time to buy a new car, I looked at Saturn but it wasn't the same. I bought a Volvo. I ended up giving the Saturn to my brother-in-law. It is still going strong with nearly 200,000 miles on it. "It's a great little car," he says.

Yes, it is. 

Original post for 50-Something Moms Blog and Los Angeles Moms Blog by Donna Schwartz Mills. Her personal site is SoCal Mom.