Junkyard Find: 1997 Saturn SC2, With Rare Badass Flame Job Option
Even though the Saturn S-Series has been one of the most common vehicle types in American self-service wrecking yards for at least the past decade, I’ve always walked right past the SCs and SLs when I’m looking for vehicles to photograph for this series. The rise and fall of the Saturn marque is a fascinating story, and the S-Series spent much of the 1990s being driven by fanatically devoted owners who appreciated the distinctly un-GM-like experience of buying their cars. The SC2 has been one of the quicker and more reliable cars in 24 Hours of LeMons racing as well, but even that wasn’t enough to make me raise my camera when I passed a whole row of the things at U-Wrench-It. It took this red ’97, with its metalflake flame job peeking through the snow at a Denver yard this winter, to give us a Saturn Junkyard Find.
Someone loved this car, but then it got wrecked hard enough to render it not worth fixing.
Perhaps King Credit has an in-house staff of flame painters, who apply flames to any vaguely sporty car that shows up in their inventory.
The flames are executed very nicely, with clean edges, gold pinstriping, and generous application of metalflake.
I didn’t feel like freezing my fingers to lift the hood and verify that the twin-cam engine was there, but I’m assuming that nobody would bother to paint such beautiful flames on a lowly SC1.
Though I’d also say the same thing about an automatic car, and so perhaps I’m wrong and this car is a single-cam SC1. It has been crushed by now, so we’ll never know.
About 10,000 miles per year during the course of its life, so this car’s owners got their money’s worth before the big crash.
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.
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Ha, late last year I picked up an automatic '98 SW1 with under 27k (not a typo - under 27,000) original miles. Little old lady, garage kept, never driven in bad weather, you all know the story. The little wagon still had it's original tires, belt, battery - I think even the wiper blades were original. Replaced all the stuff above, new motor mount, changed the fluids, plugs, wires - and it runs like a new example of the genre. With luck and some care it will last my son for many years and he'll be tired of driving it long before its service life is over. It's a tiny, noisy economy car with cheap seats, excellent visibility, and a surprisingly responsive chassis. Too bad it's a slushbox.
Yeah I had a 95 Saturn SL1 when I was in college. Bought certified pre-owned from a Saturn dealer. One of the less reliable cars I've owned. Never left me stranded but constantly had puddly stuff crapping out on it. Still, the dent/rust proof body was the bomb up in the snow-belt, and I got 32 mpg in it, with an automatic and driving it like I stole it.