Saturn is one of my favorite car brands. I was so sad to see them go when the economy took a turn for the worst and a few years later I am wondering where the place the market filled has gone. With uncertain gas prices there is a safe place in the market for cheap fuel efficient sedans. Fifteen years ago, you could by a four-door manual transmission Saturn S for next to nothing and get 40-45 mpg on the highway. Now, since the Cruze has been brought to America its sales as an affordable fuel efficient compact sedan have exploded. A Cruze eco will get 42 mpg on the highway with a manual transmission, which account for %51 of Cruze sales as compared to the automatic transmission Cruze's. If Saturn were still around today it would definitely have a place in the market in that sense. Saturn fit into a crucial niche in the American market, in that before Saturn was around, getting a reliable fuel efficient car meant buying imports from Japan.

Throughout it's lifetime, Saturn had a reputation for appealing to a younger market as opposed other brands. Their low cost of ownership and attitude brought in a large portion of the market shares from the more youthful end of the spectrum. If you were to break down the modern day equivalents i.e. Corollas, Civics, and the like you'll find that more and more cars of these type are being sold because there's more of this youth taking over the population and buying cars. You'll notice more and more people buying the same cars also, and market diversity for vehicles is being rapidly crushed with many (at least American) brands stripping down on marques to cut costs.

Sadly, the end-all appeal of Saturn as a brand has greatly diminished over the last ten years. The people who would buy a stickshift compact Saturn to supercharge and bolt on cold air intakes aren't nearly as present as they used to be. Most people looking for a compact car are only looking for the low cost of ownership and fuel economy, and most people probably have no intention of modifying and otherwise enjoying the performance of their cars. I see a future returning for that market, as well a potential revival for Saturn. Nevertheless, a return for Saturn is probably about as likely as a return for Studebaker. All I know is that if Saturn came back I'd run out and buy two of them as fast as I could.

Thoughts?

 

Never say "never" ... Even Hostess Twinkies are gonna make a comeback ...

 

I know they say that nothing truly goes away in this case I hope this is true. It'll be sad when I'm older and have to tell my children "When I was in high school I drove this car called a Saturn that they don't even make anymore." I'll have to keep my Saturn I have now until then to show them that they're not a myth. Breaks my heart.

 

Saturns return ........... I don't see it ever happening.

 

As a brand and a concept. The original Saturn attempted to fill a gap in the market place. One that was pretty much poo rely identified and then poorly marketed towards. The later Saturns were (to be honest) badge engineered or politically correct I guess, corporate platform offerings of cars that were aready established vehicles and Saturn assembly plant manufactured models of other manufacturers. An neither was successful. Whether they were any good or not is not the point, they and other badged vehicles had little to offer that were individualized. As a GM example some were the same cars offered by Oldsmobile (deceased) and Pontiac (also deceased) and clearly by Chevrolet a brand that is seemingly trying to market itself as a one sized fits all car make while Toyota and other foreign brands that were at one time GM corporate partners have been very successful in marketing their own automobiles. A lesson probably learned from GM in the first place before they began to sell cars based on decisions obtained from their book keepers rather than what the public wanted or was willing to buy. A method to define product in the past. I do not see Saturn coming back at all, any more than Oldsmobile will. A product that has been around almost from the time of the very first automobiles and also suffering from incredibly poor management decisions in the end.

 

Fill a gap? .............. More like a canyon in the GM small car segment.

 

To me it doesn't matter if Saturn returns as a brand but that some manufacturer new or already existing sees it as profitable to have a culture that always places the consumer first, which to me was the appeal of the original Saturn.

 

The original Saturns (1989-about 2000) had very little in common with other GM products including powertrains and platforms not utilized by any other GM vehicle. This uniqueness slowly faded approaching the demise of Saturn in 2009 and I credit it's death to being completely melted into rebadged versions of cars from the parent company.

 

Unless GM can build them over in China, I don't ever see it happening. They're taking all of the bail out money they got and investing in China. Bastards.

 

a return of saturn? not likely unless a very wealthy individual decides to buy the name from GM and restart the company. the "real saturns" were very fine cars for their time, and make great used cars today. my wife's SL1 single cam auto drives great and returns excellent fuel mileage. 30-31 mpg is pretty great for my area(three large winging hills on our commute), especially considering the car is an automatic, and it handles better than my five year newer suzuki, not to mention it's more comfortable. all those being said, the inner workings of the car show their age. it still performs just as it was supposed to back in 2000, but the basic engine design has been used nearly unchanged since the early 90's... it's fuel injection system(speed density) is old and is less efficient than mass air systems. the engine leaks or uses oil after some miles of use, and power is pretty low for the size of the engine by today's standards. i think the saturn sc/sl/sw could be redone if the person responsible for the revival of the brand had the same values that the original founder had. the basic engine design could be kept, with some substantial revisions to the cylinder head, and engine management system. new crash regulations and other stuff would ultimately keep the car from being as light or as small as it originally was, and its size and lack of weight were the biggest contributors to its stellar performance. so a new saturn could be made, but not in the same spirit of the original... the best thing we can do is to keep our old cars around as long as it's still possible to...