GM has been shuffling its brands again. Does anyone other than me think that it is odd to get rid of Oldsmobile and now work to move Saturn into the slot in the model lineup vacated by Oldsmobile? If Oldsmobile didn't work, why would Saturn work better as a step between Buick and Cadillac? Saturn has already carved out an identity, does it need to be changed? GM management thinks so.
All of the original Saturn models have been swept into the dust bin. The really original "S" is gone and replaced by the ION. The newer "L" was no success. It's essentially gone too.
The newer SUV, the VUE is a success by Saturn standards. But this success is due to the "old" Saturn customer, not the Oldsmobile customer -- whoever that is.
It looks like Saturn is trying to be like MINI too. The models are supposed to be in all upper-case letters. Nobody (other than us) bothers with these attempts.
Okay, what is it that will transport Saturn into this upscale Oldsmobile niche? Two concepts were shown in Detroit last month: The SKY and the AURA.
Memo to Saturn: What's with these names? Where do they come from? There's a great opportunity here to tie the new model names with the moons of Saturn. NASA's spacecraft, Cassini, is exploring those moons right now, so they will be the subject of many news stories. The probe, Huygens, just landed on Titan, Saturn's biggest moon. It has some 30 moons, so there is no shortage of model names. I doubt that they would want to use Iapetus, though. But if Volkswagen can name their SUV the Touareg, why not use Iapetus?
Anyway, there are two upcoming new Saturns to move the marque upscale.
The SKY is an adaptation of the Pontiac Solstice that looks an awful lot like the Vauxhall version of the Solstice. That probably is immaterial because how many Americans even know what a Vauxhall is. The real issue is whether there is enough of a market for two-seater convertibles to sustain both a Pontiac and Saturn version. In fact, looking at sales figures for all two-seaters, I wonder if there is enough market for even one of them. I doubt that there will be all that many new customers who never have had a two-seater and now decide to get one. Sales of the Saturn will most likely come from owners of other two-seaters changing to a Saturn. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there are a lot of loyal Saturn owners who have always wanted a Saturn two-seat sports car.
The original Pontiac Solstice was a concept done at the behest of Bob Lutz. It was a success with the press at the various auto shows, so Lutz's vanity thought that it would make a really nice product. He would like to drive one, so why wouldn't everyone else? Well… there are enough two-seat roadsters out there now, and they don't sell very well today.
The interior of the SKY is one of the best GM has done yet. The press release says that it has "piano-black inserts, tech grains, and jewel-like instrumentation with LED backlighting". Whatever. It does look nice, at least in concept form.
It will have the same engine as the Solstice, a 170-horsepower, 2.4-liter, 4-cylinder. Maybe in the future, a 240-horsepower engine will be available like the one shown in the Vauxhall version. With this engine, Saturn feels the car will compete both with the Mazda Miata and the BMW Z4. Somehow, I just don’t think a prospective buyer of the BMW will consider a Saturn.
Unfortunately with GM's way of thinking, if the SKY is even moderately successful, we will have a Buick version, Saab version, and maybe even a Cadillac and GMC version. Remember with GM, success can be cloned!
The other Saturn future model shown was the AURA. If there was any question that Saturn is going to be the Oldsmobile of the future, they even named the model to be as much like an Oldsmobile as possible. Remember the Aurora? The new Aurora, oops, AURA, will be on the ubiquitous Epsilon platform, which means Chevy Malibu and Pontiac G6. Those aren't bad, but aren't state-of-the-art either. At least it will come with a modern engine, a 3.6-liter, twin-cam, V-6 that's also seen in the Buick La Crosse, and also it will be available with an economy 2.4-liter 4-cylinder. It is very interesting that the six will get a 6-speed automatic. That's a first for GM in a front-driver. Evan will certainly wonder where that one comes from.
The car really is a lightly warmed-over Opel Vectra. I wonder why we can't just get Opels here. Why bother making some minor changes and rebadge it? Why not just sell real Opels through the Saturn dealerships? That would make the Opel the new Oldsmobile, and leave Saturn with the loyal customers the marque already has. I guess that would just be too easy for GM.
I have the official word from GM just who and what they think the competition is. This new Saturn AURA is supposed to compete with the Acura TL. That's about a $34,000 car. I wonder what the price for the Saturn will be. It had better be lower. The Pontiac G6's target is the Mazda 6. The Pontiac's price is almost identical to the Mazda's and the Pontiac is mechanically much cruder -- a pushrod engine vs. a modern overhead cam engine, one less speed in the automatic transmission, and a beam-axle rear suspension vs. fully independent. Which one of those is more desirable? And lastly, the Chevy Malibu's opponent is the Toyota Camry. Again, the listed prices are almost the same. I don't think there will be much of a contest there for which one will sell more units.
Evan has said it before and so have I: Why can't GM make a clearly superior car than the one it is supposed to compete against? They are coming quite close with the newer Cadillac models, but lower in the price scale it appears that there is not contest. And, do we really need more Oldsmobiles?
