QOTD: Are You Feeling Any Love Yet for Saturn?
Absence, it is said, only makes the heart grow fonder. Maybe ’80s fashion wasn’t so bad after all. Go ahead, roll up the sleeves on that oversized rayon blazer. Naturally, the sentiment also applies to defunct car brands.
Just last week, Corey asked what extinct car brand you would resurrect if given the chance, leading this author down a mental road populated with nothing but Studebakers and Oldsmobiles. There’s a Sophie’s Choice for you. However, one brand that didn’t see much discussion that day, at least not on our Slack channel, was Saturn.
Bozi’s had a hell of a time recently with the problem-plagued engine under the hood of his wife’s Vue hybrid, something which hasn’t exactly endeared him to the former GM division. Still, yesterday we got to talking about the brand, and it seemed very few people do not have a memory of a Saturn SL1 or SL2, or perhaps the unpopular L-Series — including myself.
Unpleasant to drive, but utterly reliable. Hmm… is it time to journey down a plastic-coated memory lane? You bet.
As we live in an unusual world, there’s no doubt enthusiast groups exist for the Saturn brand —that spunky, oddball newcomer which appeared at the dawn of the ’90s with its “A Different Kind of Car Company” slogan and exited this world under the banner “Rethink.” Well, rethink GM did, and it figured holding on to the brand during a recession and government-mandated restructuring wasn’t a smart bet. Production ground to a halt in 2009 and the Saturn name joined that of Oldsmobile, Plymouth, Eagle, Pontiac and Hummer in the automotive afterlife.
Eight years after its two-decade lifespan dried up, it isn’t the final models we remember most. Not the finicky but fun Astra, itself a badge-engineered Opel, nor the Lambda-based Outlook SUV or Epsilon-derived Aura sedan. Those modern and reasonably normal-looking models, along with the Vue crossover and sexy Sky roadster, briefly gave brand loyalists hope of a bright (though not entirely unique) future.
No, it’s the older models that spring to mind — mainly, the S-Series. Certainly, not the Ion (except in two-door guise). With no rust lapping at its polymer body panels and, if it was an SL2, a twin-cam four-cylinder providing decent power under the hood, there were arguably worse cars to find yourself in. Yes, it had an uncomfortable seating position and ride, and yes, my mother’s SL2 buzzed and rattled like it was going out of style. No two interior panels were the exact same shade of beige, I recall.
But what about that Quad Coupe? To this day, I look back and admire the ballsiness of offering a mass-produced American car with clamshell doors. It’s a simple solution to solving the problem of rear-seat access while still preserving the coupe bodystyle. Mazda sure liked the idea. Frankly, someone should pick up that torch again.
So, what say you, Best and Brightest? Do you harbor feelings of admiration or, dare I say it, love for the Saturn brand or a particular Saturn model? If you dig down deep, will you discover a grudging respect for a certain Saturn vehicle from your past? Does thinking about a former plastic-fantastic lover bring your heart rate to the Red Line? If so, tell us all about it.
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longtime lurker coming out of the darkness here. I had a week to get a car for a new job 2 years ago and had a paltry 2k in the bank. I found a 97 SW2 with 168k on the clock and an auto inside that seemed in decent shape. Now at 217k it's been stubbornly reliable aside from minor gremlins like a stuck window and a tempermental seat release lever. I looked up the car's history and it has quite a story. After a few thousand miles it's first owner took it to the dealer because it had spontaneously driven *through* her garage while warming up in park with no driver. about 10k after that, a loose bolt in the transmission blew out the bottom of the car on the highway. another 15k and the stearing wheel and dash bust into flames (!) randomly while driving. the demon inhabiting it was long gone by the time it arrived in my hands. the Saturn s's are spectacularly easy to work on for a home mechanic. you can remove the engine with a picker, a 10mm socket, and a bucketful of ratchet extensions! It lifted me out of poverty and now that I'm staunchly middle-class, I'm having a hard time replacing it. There aren't any wagons that drive well, get 30 combined mpg (what I see in mixed driving), and are light enough to be miata-like fun to drive. My auto wagon tips the scales at 2450 lbs! it does wallow a fair amount in hard corners, but I can take it on backroads to hiking trails outside of seattle and speed past all the timid Outbacks, so I'm happy with the compromise. It's a hard car not to love if you have one.
I bought a ’97 Saturn SL2 in 1999; just retired it last month with over 200k miles on it. Reliability: Some repairs here and there, yes, but never any big issues. Drive-ability: Adequate power for me - great in snow. Style: I love the sleek style of my 1997 SL2. She’s a beauty in dark green exterior with black interior. There were minor changes to the exterior design every so many years, I think the ‘97 is the sharpest year for the SL2 (front hood flares, tail end, tail lights). And at 20 years of age, she looks practically brand new. Interior upholstery is a wonderful velour type material that’s held up over the years. Visibility: Wow, I can see really well out of this car (narrow pillars) – I’m confident I can drive defensively and do my best to see cars driving in spite of the *blind spots* every car has. A lot of new cars make changing lanes a game of Russian roulette – beefed up pillars leave very narrow slivers of visible space for quick glances to determine if there are any cars driving in the blind spot. I wish the Saturn brand was still in existence. I’d buy another one in a minute assuming the quality was as good as my car proved to be, but my preferance, if it was economically feasible, would actually be to keep my car going – to restore it. I’d love to find some eccentric that keeps old cars in a barn or outsized garage for years on end. One day my Saturn SL2 could be the only one left of its kind. So what if it’s not a Lambourghini or even a Saturn Skye. What caused Saturn’s demise? A former Saturn mechanic’s thoughts on the subject: Saturn was too good of a car, they ran forever and needed few repairs. Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Public were not returning every few years to buy a new one which affected Saturn’s profitability. The corporate bigwigs therefore decided to keep the lower quality GM product car division going and shutter the Saturn branch. Sigh.