Penske deal falls through, Saturn likely to fold...

Ref: http://tinyurl.com/y94pt2q

Too bad. I drove a Saturn Aura once while on vacation and it seemed to
be a rather nice car - unlike most of the GM's I have rented over the
years.

Typical american (sic) business, I guess: get rid of something good
(Saturn in this case) and keep the crap (like chevy).

--
necromancer - ECHM

necromancer wrote:
> Ref: http://tinyurl.com/y94pt2q
>
> Too bad. I drove a Saturn Aura once while on vacation and it seemed to
> be a rather nice car - unlike most of the GM's I have rented over the
> years.
>
> Typical american (sic) business, I guess: get rid of something good
> (Saturn in this case) and keep the crap (like chevy).
>
> --
> necromancer - ECHM

Is the Aura the one that's similar to a Malibu? If so, it's a warmed
over Opel - which GM is also getting rid of.

nate

--
replace "roosters" with "cox" to reply.
http://members.cox.net/njnagel

On Wed, 30 Sep 2009 19:00:49 -0400, Nate Nagel >
wrote:

>necromancer wrote:
>> Ref: http://tinyurl.com/y94pt2q
>>
>> Too bad. I drove a Saturn Aura once while on vacation and it seemed to
>> be a rather nice car - unlike most of the GM's I have rented over the
>> years.
>>
>> Typical american (sic) business, I guess: get rid of something good
>> (Saturn in this case) and keep the crap (like chevy).
>>
>> --
>> necromancer - ECHM
>
>Is the Aura the one that's similar to a Malibu? If so, it's a warmed
>over Opel - which GM is also getting rid of.

I guess it kinda looks like the Malibu. See: http://tinyurl.com/56u5fe
(Aura) and http://tinyurl.com/y87ft9r (Mailbu) to compare...

--
"I... Can't drive... FIFTY-FIVE!!"
--Sammy Hagar

On Wed, 30 Sep 2009 18:57:48 -0400, necromancer rg> wrote:
>Ref: http://tinyurl.com/y94pt2q

>Too bad. I drove a Saturn Aura once while on vacation and it seemed to
>be a rather nice car - unlike most of the GM's I have rented over the
>years.

>Typical american (sic) business, I guess: get rid of something good
>(Saturn in this case) and keep the crap (like chevy).

From what I read (albeit briefly), it sounded like Penske wanted to go
through with the deal, but GM blocked it. I wonder how much that had
to do with GM's new govt. appointed boardmembers.

necromancer wrote:
> Ref: http://tinyurl.com/y94pt2q
>
> Too bad. I drove a Saturn Aura once while on vacation and it seemed to
> be a rather nice car - unlike most of the GM's I have rented over the
> years.
>
> Typical american (sic) business, I guess: get rid of something good
> (Saturn in this case) and keep the crap (like chevy).

Business didn't make that decision; the Commander-in-Thief did.

> > Typical american (sic) business, I guess: get rid of something good
> > (Saturn in this case) and keep the crap (like chevy).
>
> Business didn't make that decision; the Commander-in-Thief did.

History may conclude that the Obama administration could have
structured the bailout better, but he inherited the bailout (and the
overall economic context) from Bush, and GM had been in trouble for
long years. There's plenty of blame to go around.

The latter point is underscored by the very existence of Saturn, which
began during GM's years in the wilderness with the intention of
starting with a clean slate from engineering to the sales floor in
order to better compete with smaller (and higher perceived quality)
imports, but fitfully got more "corporate" over the years.

I've also read claims that something approaching 40% of their
customers would probably have bought a GM car anyway, so in effect
they were competing more against other GM divisions than against the
Japanese and VW. Dunno what to make of that.

Ironically, GM has had islands of genuine excellence in their sea of
mediocrity all along, but they never quite succeeded in making a full
range of high quality, competitively priced cars that could compete
with Honda and Toyota, or (more arguably) even the contemporary
Ford. Hard to fix the blame for that in the Oval Office.

Admittedly the occupants thereof might have done better keeping the
playing field level against foreign competitors (in particular, some
say that health care for employees and retirees alone puts US car
makers at a $2-3k per car disadvantage, compared to countries with
s*c**l*z*d m*d*c*n*). Generalizing beyond that, establishing a
basis for "fair" trade among countries with widely differing economic
bases, currency exchange rates, and other initial conditions is sort
of a full employment program for economists and negotiators, and
always will be...

--Joe

Ad absurdum per aspera wrote:
>>> Typical american (sic) business, I guess: get rid of something good
>>> (Saturn in this case) and keep the crap (like chevy).
>> Business didn't make that decision; the Commander-in-Thief did.
>
> History may conclude that the Obama administration could have
> structured the bailout better, but he inherited the bailout (and the
> overall economic context) from Bush, and GM had been in trouble for
> long years. There's plenty of blame to go around.

The bailout, even though part of it was enacted before his election,
was largely Obama's idea. And McCain discredited himself by going
along with it.

The right way to handle a situation like GM's is to let the bankruptcy
courts do their job. The useful parts of GM would have stayed in
production as part of some other company. But I suspect the unionized
plants would have been more productive as scrap, and would have gone
there.

Chicago Paddling-Fishing > wrote in
:

> necromancer rg>
> wrote:
>>Ref: http://tinyurl.com/y94pt2q
>
>>Too bad. I drove a Saturn Aura once while on vacation and it seemed to
>>be a rather nice car - unlike most of the GM's I have rented over the
>>years.
>
>>Typical american (sic) business, I guess: get rid of something good
>>(Saturn in this case) and keep the crap (like chevy).
>
> I don't understand why they felt the need to create a new car company
> in the first place... why couldn't Pontiac or Oldsmobile be the
> "Saturn" brand? Creating a new company and new dealer network was
> foolish and an expensive cash burn...

Saturn didn't have the problematic UNION to deal with.

>
> The goal shouldn't be to fool consumers with a new brand to think your
> design quality is high, it should be to have cars people want...
> Saturn was a very expensive experiment... glad I didn't own GM
> stock...
>

this means both the Sky and the Solstice go away. :-(

GM should have been keeping the best models from each brand,folding them
all under one marque.

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
localnet
dot com

Chicago Paddling-Fishing wrote:
> I don't understand why they felt the need to create a new car company in the
> first place... why couldn't Pontiac or Oldsmobile be the "Saturn" brand?

It was a way to move work to non-union plants. The only reason the Saturn
plants aren't the ones staying open is that GM is now controlled by the
UAW and the Obama administration, because Obama is in the unions' pay.

> Creating a new company and new dealer network was foolish and an expensive
> cash burn...
>
> The goal shouldn't be to fool consumers with a new brand to think your design
> quality is high, it should be to have cars people want... Saturn was a very
> expensive experiment... glad I didn't own GM stock...

A decent legal system would treat unions like any other gangs of thugs.

On 2009-10-19, John David Galt > wrote:

> A decent legal system would treat unions like any other gangs of thugs.

A decent legal system would treat the government like any other gang of
thugs too... we just don't have a decent legal system because it's in
the same profit stream.