GM Not Quite Ready to Finish Off Saturn

The history of the Saturn brand can be traced back to about 1985 when GM management decided that the best assault against encroaching Japanese brands such as Honda and Toyota was to create an all new car company. Eventually, the Saturn name was settled on for the company, which built a factory in Tennessee and began to produce the S-Series.

From the start, the compact cars from Tennessee attracted a strong following of loyal devotees, owners who loved the quirky car company as much as they enjoyed their little cars. Annually, owners would gather together near the Spring Hill plant to show off their cars as well as their devotion to Saturn.

Eventually, the S Series began to lose its sheen as GM neglected to update the model or include a second line of vehicles to supplement the Saturn brand. By the end of the 1990s, Saturn's role as a separate car company appeared doomed before the brand was finally folded into the GM fleet a few years later.

Today, Saturn along with Cadillac, Buick, GMC, Pontiac, Chevrolet, Hummer and Saab represent the GM brands sold in the US, just another moniker in the long list of GM nameplates. But, Saturn's future has been threatened of late as the automaker weighs a federal mandate to trim the fat which could include several brands being sold off or retired.

Hummer, Saab, Pontiac and Saturn have been mentioned most as the brands most vulnerable to being shut down, with Saab likely to be sold off while Hummer is simply liquidated. Pontiac's future could hinge on its relationship with Buick and GMC (they share dealerships) while Saturn's fortunes may depend on the automaker's plans for Opel (they share models).

Regardless, the word coming from Mark LaNeve - GM's marketing chief - have been suggesting that Saturn may have a future after all.

When interviewed by several leading publications in December 2008, LaNeve said that GM would revisit Saturn to see what role the brand could play for the company going forward. GM is keenly aware that the brand's dealer network is among the best in the country and that Saturn's relationship with Opel could help the brand live on. Regardless, GM is interested in helping dealers clear out old inventory to make way for new models.

GM's desire to keep Saturn could rest on what a proposed "car czar" would order, an Obama appointee expected to oversee the US auto industry when he or she is appointed by Spring 2009. That person could weld an unusual amount of clout, but with the federal government holding the purse, GM may have no choice but to follow the federal mandate for Saturn and all of its many brands.

A quarter of a century later Saturn is no longer known as "a different kind of car company" but if Saturn faithful have their way, the brand will soldier on minus its quirks, but perhaps with its mystique in place.