Comments on: Report: Penske leads Saturn bidding, announcement as early as tomorrow

By: shaver

shaver — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 16:27:06 +0000

Roger has the resources, connections and cahones. But the question is, what is he going to sell? Smart seems like an obvoius answer he is already knee deep in it and it has drastically underperformed his original expectations. To me the obvoius thing is Opel. But what do they have that is ready for US regs now? The same with Renault, Fiat or PSA, who all want access to Umerica $. Maybe they can keep pimping rebadged GM products.

By: saabaru1

saabaru1 — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 13:59:00 +0000

ps- if you are hiring, I will start off sweeping floors if thats what it takes.

By: saabaru1

saabaru1 — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 13:48:35 +0000

OH PLEASE OH PLEASE OH PLEASE ROGER PENSKE BUY PONTIAC TOO.

By: ricky_b

ricky_b — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 12:32:17 +0000

Mitsu???? Has anyone been reading their volume sales in the US lately. GM is getting rid of Saturn which sold 8k in volume last month and 140k in the last 12 months. Mitsu in US sold 4.4k last month and 73k in the past 12 months. Folks, Mitsu has sold about 1/2 of what Saturn has sold. Not the company to be basing things on and I really questions how much longer Mitsu can survive in US.

I’m not saying that Mitsu doesn’t have a few good products, but they don’t have enough to sustain themselves and Saturn without some serious influx of cash.

As for Nissan/Renault. That one could be interesting, especially if they kept Saturn as more of the European outlet that GM had started to setup with Opel. Do the same but know with Renault.

Just know sure exactly what track Penske would take.

By: carstuff

carstuff — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 10:56:48 +0000

Kid, if Saab becomes Swedish owned it will not last long. A small company like Saab cannot make it in todays world.

I would think Penske would sell multiple branded vehicles at Saturn dealerships.

By: orangecones

orangecones — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 07:53:19 +0000

Penske already pretty much controls the smart network in the US. Combining this with Saturn could be interesting. As for where the cars will come from, I guess this all depends. If they are gonna be straight rebadges of Mitsu/Nissans that we already have (…a la Suzuki Equator vs Nissan Frontier), that would be bad. If they are some non-US market models (ie…the good ones), then we may have something interesting. Saturn X-Trail anyone?

By: Kid Icarus

Kid Icarus — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 06:30:19 +0000

Who cares about Saturn? I would absolutely love to see SAAB Swedish owned again, by Koenigsegg, and see them return to their glory days before GM ran them into the ground.

By: jdasch1

jdasch1 — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 00:13:45 +0000

Everything Roger Penske touches turns to GOLD…I hope he gets it. He then would have the most modern group of dealerships in the world. Saturn dealerships are all about customer experience and satisfaction…now they just need some cars to rave about!!

By: Borat

Borat — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 00:13:32 +0000

Imagine Saturn badged Smart? That’s a trip.

By: Blakkarr

Blakkarr — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 00:12:15 +0000

First, I hope SAAB becomes wholly Swedish again.

Second, I would hope Penske has more ambitious plans than to carry re-badged cars from the third party. maybe push to build that Alpha Platform and some wholly original cars as well.

By: johnnycanuck

johnnycanuck — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 22:56:50 +0000

Roger just wants his own brand to race in NASCAR. Even Hendrick can’t make that claim.

By: yarddog82abn

yarddog82abn — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 22:37:23 +0000

Funny how everyone is taking a peace the GM pie, Some will survive and others will fall.

By: 6ix

6ix — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 21:37:00 +0000

I’d still like to see Saturn stay around as rebadged Opels.

By: slider5634

slider5634 — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 21:33:43 +0000

^ which now that I think about it is kind of unusual considering Nissan is owned by Renault. Oops… Open mouth, insert foot.

By: slider5634

slider5634 — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 21:32:05 +0000

And here I was looking forward to seeing some Renaults imported to the States from Europe. Oh well… Whatever happens, Mitsubishi sourced vehicles is a plain bad idea; just ask the Chrysler group. For that matter, I’ve not been overly impressed by Nissan as of late either.