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US: GM's Saturn sale to Penske is off
GM will close Saturn and wind down its dealership network after a proposed deal to sell the brand to Penske Automotive Group collapsed.
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1 Oct 2009
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RE: US: GM's Saturn sale to Penske is off
Penske seldom makes big mistakes. GM put on its best game face while Penske did his due diligence, but in the end, the business case does not work.
The problem with Saturn in recent years wasn't bad product. Saturn has versions of several good shared GM platforms. But the products were never distictive enough to sell at a premium, nor were scale economies strong enough to earn a profit at Saturn's low volumes. Marketing to import intenders may have sounded smart when conceived, but it was wishful thinking, not sound strategy.
I think GM now knows that everything it invested in Saturn should have been invested in Chevrolet, to compete head to head with value segment competitors... Toyota, Honda, Ford, Nissan, and now Hyundai.
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1 Oct 2009
by billyjoejimbob
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RE: US: GM's Saturn sale to Penske is off
Very good observation, but GM and others should have brought from their European operations the cars in the 1970s, as Saturn started to do with Optra now, too late! I’m sure; the situation would have been much different. It is not my opinion from hind sight, I was astonished in 1970s, my first [real] contact with US auto industry… or maybe we should say truck industry. Germans were calling these big American cars; the “strassencreutzers" [street-tanks].” I remember the arrogant statements that nobody will drive those “tin cans” offered by the Japanese and others… I remember, Mr. Karl Ludvigsen could not find the Saturn (it looked so ordinary among other cars…) during its [Saturn] presentation at the opening of Chrysler Technology Center in Detroit he visited in 1990s. My comment was, “Saturn was too little, too late.” That was when GM had high hopes for the car… I think we both were right. Indeed, Penske is not a fool… He must know his business.
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12 Oct 2009
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Mark Kmicikiewicz
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