Make a decent car (mechanically), and put on a plastic body that never rusts, fades, dents, or peels paint. Then let GM completely take over the brand, change all the “unique” style vehicles and make them match existing Chevy, Pontiac, and Buick models (even remove the Saturn badge and put a standard GM logo instead) – oh, and while your at it, make them out of metal just like their other GM counterparts…

…and GM executives wonder why Saturn sales haven’t improved in the last few years????

Every loyal Saturn owner (like myself) bought the darn things because they WERE unique and plastic. I had a 1997 SL2 that I drove until just this past Dec 2008. It still looked like new everytime I took it thru the wash (no rust, no door dings, no fading). No one is saying it was perfect, but see how many 1997 Dodge Neons or Chevy Cavaliers you could find that you could say the same thing about after 12 years on Ohio roads and snow.

Caddy passenger car and truck sales hit 180,000 in 2007 (the last of the good years). Buick sold even fewer products, Those are lower sales numbers for either Infiniti or Lexus. In the mid 1970s Cadillac offered three models: The Fleetwood Brougham (Sedan DeVille, the Coupe DeVille and the Eldorado. With those models alone Cadillac division was selling 300,000 cars per year.

DTS and STS are being discontinued after 2010. Originally Holden was to engineer a Zeta full size platform to be used by the STS replacement but GM has axed that platform. The Vette based XLR will be gone before years end. Amazingly the XLR sold no better than the Allante did back in its day.

Even GM must have doubts on the value of its prestige line when it starts taking its unique platforms away.

New SRX is not Sigma II based but a rebadged Chevy Equinox (Theta platform)

Chevy in 2007 sold something on the order of 875,000 passenger cars per year so they are still pretty large.

Could it be that Caddy and Buick will merge into some sort of GM premium line with the Caddy name on the luxury passenger cars the Buick name on Luxury Crossovers and Corvette doing high-end specialty sports cars?

Well I cant say Im surprised or upset about the brands dying. More just disapointed that GM sucked balls for so long that when they finally do get it right, it is too late, the image is tarnished for a generation. And with the market as competetive as it is, with more brands and models then ever it is harder then ever to turn around said image. And all brands that are not in extremely strong economic postitions are in dire trouble today. I would put all but BMW, Porsche, VW, Ford, PSA, FIAT, Toyota and Honda in the “hope you make it through” category.

I am upset that the present world economy is becoming less and less condusive to supporting a middle class economy in developed countries. The middle classes of NA, Australia and Europe are being squeezed by the wealthy of their own countries and the emerging masses of developing countries.

But look at Edmunds now to see just how many brands are on sale now: 48. That is way too many choices in one market. Whenever this happens in any industry, attrition and consolidation occur. GM has to consolidate some brands. Some brands will go under. Others will go under soon, as we see Hummer going and Saab possibly. Daewoo disappeared a few years ago. China decided not to even enter. Isuzu is now gone. Oldmobile. Plymouth. I don’t see Mercury or Scion lasting. And others like Jaguar, Rover, Mazda, Mitsubishi have been on the brink of collapse so many times.

We have a way to go I think before this is all settled.

Cannot believe that some posters do not have full command of the English language, sufficient to make the distinction between denotation and connotation. The suggestion of using numeric model names, as does BMW, is a sarcasm, a form of rhetoric. The connotation is that the Pontiac brand name is so tarnished beyond repair that it would make absolutely no difference what model name became attached to the brand’s products.

IT IS A RE-BADGED PONTIAC!!!

The first nail in Saturn’s coffin came not from the product, but from the vehicle market in general. Saturn’s sole product in the 1990′s was a small, fuel efficient came at a time when nobody wanted small, fuel efficient cars. Gas was cheap and people wanted big vehicles.

Nail #2 came from GM’s refusal to give Saturn more product. Imagine a Honda dealer selling nothing but Civics, or a Toyota dealer selling nothing but Corrollas, or a Chev dealer selling nothing but Cavaliers. That’s the situation Saturn was in: A decent “loss leader” product to get young new car buyers into dealerships, but nothing for those buyers to graduate into. No larger, more profitable cars for loyal owners to upgrade to.

Nail #3 came when GM finally did throw Saturn a few product “bones”. Quiite frankly it was far too little, far too late. The LS series was nothing but a reskinned Opel, and not a very good one. It lacked Saturn’s trademark space frame, it lacked Saturn’s unique drivetrains, and it lacked the value factor. Itv was the beginning of the death of the brand, or more accurately, it was the beginning of the assimilation. The GM division created to sell American cars to people that would not normally buy American cars was now selling rebadged European cars. On top of that it was just plain not a very good car. The Ecotech 4-cylinder was garbage in its first few years (google “ecotech timing chain failure”) and the 3.0 V6 was even worse. S-series cars were crap, but at least they were cheap. LS-series cars were crap and were every bit as expensive as their much better competition. Then came the VUE. Nothing more than a reskinned Equinox, but without the fit-and-finish of the Equinox, and it developed a horrible reputation thanks to its VTI transmission. The Relay was just plain bad, a rebadged (not even reskinned) Uplander van, which itself was mediocre at best. The Ion was little other than a reskinned Cobalt, but was not even as good as the Cobalt. With all of these second string products it’s little wonder Saturn floundered. The Sky was a really cool car, but completely out of place at a Saturn dealership. It should have been a Chevy, marketed as a baby Corvette.

Nail #4 was when GM decided to move Saturn upmarket. Upmarket is fine when you’re actually pushing upmarket cars, but in GMspeak, upmarket simply meant “Pay more for less car”. By selling European cars GM had to charge more because of the dollar/Euro relationship. First we got the Aura, which is a nice car but is easily outmatched by any number of competitors (including its sibling, the Malibu) for less money. Then we got the Astra, which is just plain horribly outclassed by just about every one of its competitors for WAY less money. To make things worse GM brought the bottom feeder over the pond and left the good ones in Europe. The S-series was no Civic, but it didn’t cost as much as a Civic. The Astra is no civic either, but costs Civic money, Is it any wonder nobody wants one?

Actually, for the past several years it seems like Saturn was nothing more than a Beta division of Chevy. Develop a new car, market it as a Saturn, observe a sh!tload of complaints, address those complaints and sell the result as a Chevy. It happened with the Ion/Cobalt, it happened with the Vue, it happened with the Aura/Malibu. Beta versions of new cars for more money than the “final release” Chevy version, with the resulting quality and resale value problems and a spotty dealer network. Yeah, Saturn will really be missed…

As for Saturn, they’re making the same mistake they did with Oldsmobile. They’re giving it a fresh model line which is the best in the company and not giving it time & advertising budget to catch on.

I realize times are tough and this has to be done for the greater good – it just sucks though. I really wanted to be invited to a Saturn BBQ!

Pontiac Division 2007 sales (pre-market collapse) 375,000

What has not worked:

The re-badged Holdens – GTO and G8 – no matter the LS-1, LS-2 engine and how cheap an alternative to a BMW 550i the G8 GT is.

The G6 despite the fraud that Oprah was giving them away FREE on her show – it was Pontiac that donated the cars and the recipients had to pay income tax on the alleged value of $26K.

Rather than waste any time resurrecting the Firebird, TA, Tempest or Bonneville names Pontiac could try numerals for the Pontiac line.

Numerical model names have served BMW pretty darned well.

At least BMW between 1985 and 2007 increased its NA sales 4 times: from 80,000 to over 330,000.