If GM had put more effort into small and compact cars back int eh 1990s when they really had the chance to, they would not be in this mess now.

But I do agree with you, fully.

FORD tried to spin off their European cars as a new division, MERKUR, and that failed miserably. I can’t recall a single ad or commercial. MERCURY was a strong division then and getting to Euro RWD cars that were at or near the top in their class in EUROPE at the time would have been a major boon.

GM shipping their European small cars as Chevys and Pontiacs would have been a better move than starting up the “not GM ” Division, which had a promising future but tanked due to typical DETROIT indifference to smaller cars despite a clear evidence that such cars can be a solid bedrock for future buyers and income for the company..

Maybe now GM will be forced to do just that, ship Euro models as Chevys and Pontiacs. I’d love to get some of those Small Opel sports cars

What could it hurt if GM were to sell the next Astra and Aura (Insignia) at Buick/GMC dealers, either under the Pontiac or Opel name.. if they had just dumped Saturn a few years back and sold the Opel products as Pontiacs, they probably wouldn’t be in this mess now.

That only shows how little I care about Saturn. But maybe the those Stockholders will try to make some lemonade from this lemon.

One can hope but, just not this one.

It is true that no one showed up to work at the plants when the UN embargoed products from Yugoslavia during the 1990s breakup of Yugoslavia and the rebels and then NATO bombed the plants.

But investors that helped broker the deal to set up a Zastava franchise in the US were more interested in selling military equipment that Zastava also made than cars. Tanks and armored personnel carriers are more profitable than cars.

GM and VW must have at least some faith in Chinese manufacturing ability. They’ve got Chinese people building cars for them. Many Chinese-made components are already on the road in North America, including powertrains. The Chinese are famous for reverse engineering others’ work and copying it. How long does anyone actually think it will be before this happens with cars?

People gambled on Hyundai, Kia, Honda, Volkswagen, Toyota, Mazda, and all the rest when they first started selling cars here, too. The first offerings of every one of those manufacturers were cheap, crude, throwaway cars. They cost much less than their more accepted competition, and they succeeded. China will do the same. The Reds are coming. Get used to the idea.

Saturn doesn’t have separate ownership from GM. GM shareholders own Saturn. Saturn doing business as a division of GM will simply wind down.

It’s a dealership network that claims it has plans to become licensed distributors of cars made by another manufacturer.

It is analogous to what Malcolm Bricklin did with Yugo back in the 1980s.

Or more recently Penske Automotive became the US licensee to distribute the Smart Car in the US.

Penske is a huge conglomerate with truck leasing and 253 car dealerships. The company’s stock is traded on the NYSE, so they obviously had the capital to make the Smart successful in the US.

Bricklin flopped with the Yugo. He didn’t have enough capital.

Question is whether a network of some car dealers, which will have no product to sell pretty soon, can raise enough capital to be able to acquire exclusive distributorship rights to market and sell a foreign made car in the U.S.

Renault may now have the dealer network they need to bring their cars to the US again… Let’s just wait and see.

It might be possible if the people taking SATURN have a business plan that works. I could see SATURN being forcibly turned around into a new stand alone company, but they need to focus on only a few cars to start and offer something new, whether it is a focus on Hybrids, Performance, or Volkswagan-like compact luxury and sport.

That said I was afraid this was going to happen to SATURN after OLDSMOBILE got the shaft. No solid mission, lacking budgets, no goals. OLDSMOBILE was stripped of everything but its personality by the end. SATURN is going through the same decline. Early SATURNS were cheeky, but you expecting them to improve, but they are consistently the cheapest version of anything sold by GM and it shows by another division. What every happened to being the small car division. With that SATURN should have been courting the youth market even offering Compact sports cars like the ION Redline Rally.

Whatever.

Aside from some nicely futuristic styling, SATURN really was ignorable. I won’t miss them. I still lament OLDSMOBILE, the division that deserved to survive over BUICK and PONTIAC.

I like the Vauxhall idea though. I like Vauxhalls. Too bad GM won’t allow the Saturnites to compete against GM with GM products.

China is coming. Fear it, deny it, pray against it all you want, but it’s coming. And when it does, it will be a day of reckoning for all other manufacturers, domestic and import.

…And yes, Chinese cars are absolute CRAP, but so were Hyundai, Kia, and Daewoo (and Honda, and Toyota, and Nissan, and Mazda, etc) when they first came over here. For the first few years they’ll sell crappy bottom-feeder throwaway cars at rock bottom prices. As they sell, they’ll learn how to build better cars that meet American expectations and expand into different, more profitable segments. Anybody who doesn’t think this can (and will) happen is a fool. If Hyundai can go from selling the Pony in 1984 to the Genesis in 2009 WITHOUT a ready-made dealer network waiting for them, imagine what China will do with one.

This is the one and only way that selling or closing Saturn will come back to haunt GM: They’re opening the doors to even more competition.