Saturn: GM's small-car adventure

Initial models featured plastic body panels and original technology under the skin

Jun 05, 2009

Special to the Star

Imagine a factory where workers play on an outdoor obstacle course and engage in group-hugging sessions. Where they interview the people that may end up working alongside them on the assembly line. And, if they develop a bad attitude, they're paid to spend a day thinking about what's bugging them.

This was the organizational model at Saturn Corporation – GM's $3.5-billion adventure in automaking that has one specific goal: to build small cars as well as the Japanese do. That adventure came to a close this week with the announcement of a tentative deal to sell the carmaker to former race car driver and dealerships chain owner Roger Penske.

After watching the imports beat the tar out of General Motors' small cars in the marketplace, Alex Mair, vice-president of what would become GM's advanced engineering staff, put together a crack team of engineers to start an innovative small-car project in 1982.

It became known as Saturn, named for the rocket that propelled astronauts to the moon during America's glory days.

Given the monumental task of launching a stand-alone company that did not share parts with other GM divisions, the project advanced slowly. Saturn came up with 54 patents as the prototype car took shape, including electronic controls for the automatic transmission and a rigid space frame for crash protection.

Because the platform was so robust, body panels weren't needed for structural integrity, so Saturn made them from a plastic polymer. All the vertical body panels were resistant to rust and small impacts – a distinctive selling feature. The horizontal panels (roof, hood and trunk) remained stamped in steel.

When then-GM chairman Roger Smith and United Auto Workers president Owen Bieber drove the first car off the Tennessee assembly line in 1990, it symbolized a new chapter in GM's history, one that embraced the small car as a legitimate and profitable product – and Saturn workers as true business associates.

Saturn's unique labour agreement handed its work teams an extraordinary amount of decision-making power. When workers spotted an assembly problem, they could shut down the entire line to fix it.

Line workers were paid a salary rather than an hourly wage and had a say in budgets. One team rejected some pneumatic assembly equipment and went to another supplier to buy electronic gear that its members believed was safer.

Saturn's huge new plant south of Nashville made its own engines, transmissions, body stampings, instrument panels and seats right on the premises, reducing the amount of trucking needed. The paint process was water-based, which cut waste emissions generated by the factory.

The first cars were delivered in October 1990 to a small network of U.S. dealers concentrated in key import markets such as California. It would be another year before the brand arrived in Canada.

Saturn made its debut with the S-series four-door sedan, two-door coupe and five-door wagon. If the cars weren't entirely distinctive – one journalist referred to the sedan's styling as a seven-eighths-scale Oldsmobile – their stores certainly were.

Saturn retailers featured no-haggle pricing and almost overfriendly customer service. Buyers were photographed at delivery surrounded by dealer staff, and were invited to the Spring Hill factory for a "homecoming" picnic each year. Owners were even encouraged to don a Saturn golf shirt and sell cars themselves.

The cars were warmly received by consumers at first, and it took only five years for Saturn to sell its one-millionth auto. But despite the boast that plastic-skinned Saturns were easy to evolve and improve, the S-series barely changed during the first decade of production.

By 2000, the novelty had worn off. With dated platforms and a limited range of products, consumers surmised the marque had been somewhat neglected by GM and shopped elsewhere.

GM responded the best way it knew how: badge engineering. It would take popular products from its other divisions and slap a Saturn emblem on the grille. The larger L-series sedan and wagon shared a platform and engine with the Opel Vectra from GM's German subsidiary.

After that, the bold Saturn experiment began unravelling quickly: new models were based entirely on other GM vehicles wearing conventional steel body panels, the innovative labour agreement was torn up, and Saturn became just another division of an increasingly aimless General Motors.

Here's a look at a couple of key Saturn models:

1991-2002 Saturn S-series

Powered by a lumpy 1.9 L four-cylinder engine, the S-series cars couldn't offer neck-snapping performance, but they were among the most fuel-efficient vehicles of their day, burning as little as 5.7 L/100 km (50 m.p.g.) when equipped with a manual transmission.

Consumer Reports called the S-series "unremarkable," finding the engines noisy and unrefined (especially the DOHC version), the seats too low and cramped, and the interior too plasticky. One innovation Saturn brought to market was a third, minidoor on the 1999 coupe, enhancing rear-seat access.

After initial fawning admiration for the Saturn concept, buyers soon learned the cars broke down like any other and the engine had an appalling thirst for oil, sometimes at a very young age. Nevertheless, some owners were able to coax their Saturns to rack up very high mileage on their odometers.

2000-04 Saturn L-series

Saturn engineers changed just about everything to homogenize the mid-size Opel Vectra sedan and wagon for North American consumption. Polymer pieces replaced the steel body panels and the Opel's ride was softened for American tastes but, happily, some Germanic character was retained.

The base motor was an all-new 2.2 L twin-cam four cylinder with balance shafts, making 137 hp. Optional was an Opel-supplied 3.0 L DOHC V6, detuned to deliver just 182 hp. The interior was roomy but the furnishings were drab and ill-fitting.

Owners reported a grim litany of expensive faults, including wrecked engines and transmissions, coolant leaks, air conditioning failures, and chronic electrical and alignment headaches.

It seemed the vaunted German engineering lost something in the translation. GM took the Delaware-built car behind the shed and put it out of its misery after five short years.

Toronto Star