Steve wrote:

> This discussion prompts me to think about the question, why did GM start
> Saturn in the first place? Remember "a different kind of car; a different
> kind of car company?" The early marketing would seem to suggest that GM
> wasn't as much concerned with the fact that they wouldn't be able to "sell
> enough vehicles to justify the design and tooling costs for a line of unique
> vehicles" (to quote scharf.steven). If this was true and what steven says is
> now true, then I would say that GM has pulled (even if without having
> intended it, originally) something similar to a "bait and switch." They
> lured us away from Japanese product with the SL, SC and SW lines (polymer
> panels, reliable, inexpensive, fun, [relatively] powerful 4-cylinder OHC
> engines) and now offer products that are completely different but with
> synergies to other GM product. Well, I guess it's back to Asian imports ....
> <frown>

The problem is that they didn't lure nearly enough people away from the
Japanese products (most of which are not even imports any more). The
reliability turned out to be a myth, the crashworthiness wasn't there,
and the prices, while okay in terms of comparative MSRPs, were high
compared to actual street prices. Saturn got a bad reputation for
reliability with the oil burning and cracked head issues on the S
series. It's hard to overcome all this.