Wild-Ass Rumor Of The Day: Opel City Car Coming To The US

A friend of mine needed a new car after the death of her Altima in 2008. It was the middle of the gas price spike, and obvious choices like the Civic were sold out or priced beyond her range. There was a Saturn dealer(which is now a failed Jaguar dealer) on the same street as the Honda, Nissan, and Carmax stores, so we went for a look. I was curious to get a good look at an Astra, but my friend eliminated it as soon as she touched it, saying it was a tin can. Her Altima was a piece of garbage, but she thought the Astra was unacceptably cheap. The Aura was more her speed, but the dealer insisted on pushing a fully loaded left over 2006 Aura V6 for less than the price on the 2008 Aura I4 with light equipment that she'd have been interested in. We were told that GM had suspended hybrid production for the rest of the year, just what you should do in a fuel crunch if you work in Detroit.

@SVX pearlie Saturn was it's own disaster, and Opel merely prolonged the death. Saturn was an anachronism from when each division made it's own cars with their own unique engines and chassis and bodies, in a time when efficiency was the watchword. Saturn tried to sell Opel/Buick-cost cars to women on a Chevy/Pontiac budget. Buick is at higher price point than Saturn. Buick, OTOH, is doing just fine selling lightly-massaged Opels at an appropriate price point which actually recovers the development costs, so they're making money for GM, hand over fist. Volvo & Benz try to sell the C30 at roughly $30k. Buick would be pricing the Astra at or near the same $20k that Mini charges.