Editorial: The Truth About Saturn

When I went car shopping in the early ‘90s, my priorities were fun-to-drive, reliability, and economy. Style— not so much, or so I thought. But the first time I saw a Saturn, I knew instantly what it was, although I’d never seen a photo, since the car was conspicuously absent from the ads. As soon as Consumer Reports gave Saturn a preliminary blessing for reliability, I gave it my consideration. Ultimately, I became so smitten that I didn’t bother to re-look at the Integra after I discovered to my great chagrin, in the dealer’s lot, that the turning circle was nearly as big as the namesake planet’s diameter.

Nonetheless, my Saturn, a ’93 SL2 5-speed, was a hoot to drive. Once a honking Nissan SUV tried to pace me on Cape Cod’s exceptionally scenic and winding Old County Road. He could catch me on the straights, but I lost him easily in the twisties. The Saturn steered precisely and cornered flat with virtually no understeer, aided by its low mass, less than 2500 lbs. Like the vorpal sword in Jabberwocky, the switchgear went snickersnack. The gas mileage: 35 on the road. Although a google search failed to find the quote, some reviewer, somewhere, I swear, had dubbed Saturn “the practical person’s sporty car.”

Yet, within a few years, when people asked me what I drove, I found myself apologizing for the bland… uh, brand. The first time I saw generation-2, I didn’t know whether I was looking at a Hyundai, a Tercel or an Olds. In the same way that peoples’ faces lose definition as the high cheekbones and clear jaw lines of youth disappear under the sagging skin of old age, so the Saturn’s appearance lost its sporty edge.

So did the driving dynamics. On my first drive, on a moderately hard turn which my Saturn would have taken with aplomb, the car leaned way over, and the rear let go.

What happened? My theory was that after the quasi-independent Saturn Corp. was yanked back into the Mother Company in 1994, there had been a turf war between Saturn on Pontiac over which would be the “sporty” division, a status Pontiac had claimed since the first GTO. The evidence: the ‘96 Pontiac Sunfire looked exactly like they’d taken the first gen Saturn, and tweaked the lights.

Dick Danjin, who did two stints as UAW rep in charge at Spring Hill, tells me the problem was far more general (no pun intended). In the vision of GM president Roger Smith, Saturn was to take over where NUMMI left off, teaching old, sclerotic GM all the new Japanese tricks. Collaboration rather than conflict would characterize labor-management relations. This meant, among other things, that the cars would come off of the line properly assembled (a.k.a. “first time quality”) instead of post-assembly fixes, as was the norm on Big 3 assembly lines.

According to “Comeback: The Fall & Rise of the American Automobile Industry,” GM’s $3.5b Saturn investment made it the object of jealousy among the other divisions. Indeed, the autocratic Smith had practically forced Saturn down GM’s intake manifold. With Smith’s departure in 1990, soon after launch, Saturn lost its patron.

But even during pre-launch, Smith couldn’t keep the bean counters from nickel and diming Saturn. Even after suppliers had been vetted and given contracts, accounting would enlist new ones in their quest to shave pennies per car, and quality would suffer, says Danjin.

Saturn was launched before it was ready, says Danjin, who adds that he and his original corporate counterpart, Jay Wetzel, the vice president of engineering at Saturn, had protested vainly. Brake discs warped easily, and there was an oil use problem.

Soon after his second Saturn stint began in 1994, Danjin found that first time quality was a pathetic 38.7 percent, and 300 people were working in the post-assembly fix-it shop 20/7. The quest to achieve black ink through high production was forcing levels of overtime that corroded quality. Danjin says his letters to Saturn corporate Kahuna Skip LeFauve, with carbons to his UAW boss Steve Yokich and GM president Jack Smith (no relation to Roger) barely boosted first time quality to a lackluster 51 percent.

Bottom line: its status as corporate stepchild prevented Saturn from receiving sufficient financing to successfully launch a new car company. Once Saturn lost its quasi-independent status, it lost its way. The original Saturn sold a record 286k units in 1994, placing fifth in car sales that year. Twelve years later, five Saturn models, the Aura, Ion, and Sky automobiles, and the Outlook and Vue SUVs sold a combined total of just 240k units.

Hacks blamed the genesis of Saturn’s slide on letting the original style go stale, and lack of other models. But nearly 20 years on, the gen-1 styling still looks fresh. Had Saturn remained true to Roger Smith’s vision: an import fighter with steadily improving quality, technology, and driving dynamics, and had they kept the original’s great looks, I’d still be on Planet Six.