Great, I knew I should have bought that Honda instead,
For those who expected General Motors’ once-funky Saturn brand to live on with a new owner, there has been a sad twist. Saturn, once billed as a different kind of car company, appears as dead as Pontiac and Oldsmobile.
At the brand’s 350 remaining dealers around the country, there were high hopes that a deal would be announced for GM to sell the brand to former race car driver and auto industry magnate Roger Penske.
Instead, Penske Automotive Group Inc. announced Wednesday it is walking away from the deal, unable to find a manufacturer to make Saturn cars when GM stops producing models sometime after the end of 2011. GM then announced it would stop making Saturns and soon would close down the brand, just like it did with Oldsmobile in 2004 and soon will do with Pontiac.
The day’s events mean an almost certain end to Saturn, a brand that was set up in 1990 to fight growing Japanese imports. Instead of celebrating a rebirth, the announcements sent dealers scrambling for ways to stay open and preserve about 13,000 jobs.
“I find this hard to believe,” said Carl Galeana, owner of two Saturn dealerships in suburban Detroit. “Everyone’s been saying we’re right at the goal line.”
News flash for Mr. Galeana – people connected with the government lie. Routinely.
However, I suppose that this one can’t be blamed on Obama. Apparently Saturn was running in the red for quite a while, but nobody bothered to do anything about it because it was “hip” and “cool” and appealed to young people, just the sort of idealism that finds things like “making the necessary changes to our business model so that we can become profitable” to be just a tad tawdry.
On a personal note, I guess I’m going to have an even tougher time getting service for the used Saturn Ion I bought earlier this year with the payout from my totaled Scion. Which is a shame, because the Ion is a piece of junk.
Tags: auto industry, GM, Socialism
