Saturn Brand is Confused About Its Origins
TTAC commentator (and now unintentional blogger) Lichtronamo dropped us an interesting email, which we reprint for your dining and dancing pleasure: "I was reading a Saturn brand Special Advertising Section in the April 2008 Automobile magazine (starting on page 40 and ending at page 53). On the last page, I caught this little nugget of info re: the Saturn brand: "Saturn was named for the rocket, not the planet". This raises at least two questions: 1. Wasn't Oldsmobile the "rocket" brand when Saturn was first launched (both the real rocket and the car brand, I guess)? 2. If Saturn was named after the rocket and not the planet– as suggested by the ad– then why is the Saturn logo a stylized image of the planet? Rethink that! [Note: if you come across a TTAC worthy item– in the media or real life– email robert.farago@thetruthaboutcars.com, including your user name.]
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Better than naming it Uranus
Who cares? Saturn was a run-away success from the moment it was launched. Took them four years to reach 283.000 cars sold. One car. It probably made the other GM brand/model/dept/golf round robin managers look bad -- which is why they commenced destroying what they had. (Couldn't have helped that they bought Saab at the same time -- Saabs could have been perfect Saturns, or the other way around). No, can't have just one kind of car - got to have ourselves a whole range of Saturns. So the GM entry level Saturn car got itself an entry level Saturn ... They're numbskulls and you shouldn't really be surprised that they can't remember the origin of a car they've been completely confused by.
Saturn - not "Rethink" "Rebadge"
I like the Wikipedia description for the astrological symbol of Saturn the best: Matter (cross) taking precedence over mind or human spirit (crescent). Oddly appropriate for an automobile, eh? Though the astrological symbol itself might have been a bit too cryptic as a logo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrological_symbols