Saturn has a good line-up, but it gets compromised when their products trickle down from Europe to US, also marketing job is piss-poor...i.e. "Kiss my Astra"

Vauxhall, Holden, Pontiac need to be killed and products within their ranges that still make sense should be put under Opel umbrella. That way GM can grow Opel into a worldwide recognized brand to take on VW for example. Chevy should remain a value brand.

GMC also needs to go.

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Why?

They got billions with no strings attached. Why do anything differently? Just threaten more job losses and billions more will rain down.

Funny how a gov't bailout gives you new found chutzpah

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@ Noidor

Kill Holden and Vauxhall? Are you on crack? Holden is GM's Australian brand; they aren't sold anywhere else. Vauxhall is GM's British brand, again not anywhere else. Open is the mainland Europe brand.

Those brands do not compete against other GM brands directly like Saturn does (Chevrolet is in Britain as well, but it's still not to the extent of the US with 8 or so brands overlapping). Maybe you should go back to the 4 piece puzzles that trouble you so much instead of trying to run an automaker.

The product is done right at Saturn; they just need to market the damned things. Most people don't know about the Astra or Aura or Vue or Sky.

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SAIC should first bail out its own brands (Ssangyong) who cannot meet payroll due to excess debt.

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I find it hard to believe that anyone would be interested in buying Hummer even with cheap gas prices right now.

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I agree. My pet peeve is that Saturn spent a decade building 1) brand loyalty and 2) an incredible, critic and public pleasing dealer experience; all this with crappy vehicles (maybe not crappy but definitely appliance level).

Now they have infused the brand with badge engineered vehicles and 0 marketing. The Aura was a fantastic car when it came out and 0 marketing. the Malibu is better because its basically a Gen2 version.

The Astra is a good car but GM doesnt want to sell a lot of those because they basically lose money. Its just not competitive to ship the products from Europe. Now if they had sent over an upmarket Astra and been able to compete with the Si for 20K in performance, they would do much better.

If GM would quit treating it like the red headed step child, they could probably do wonders.

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@geo,

Good post.

Saturn was from the start, marketing over product. Now they have excellent product, but no marketing.

As for the Si, that's the most pathetic sports compact there is. GM could top that simply by using the Cobalt SS's engine and suspension on the Astra.

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Agreed. All good points.

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@ Frylock350,

So because the Si doesn't have a gazillion horsepower going to the front wheels, it's "pathetic"? Before you compare it to practically any other spo-com, keep in mind it came out before all of them except the GTI. That's what manufacturers do. Look at what's released and try to one-up it. But if it wasn't for the Si (and while we're at it, the GS-R and SE-R), there wouldn't BE a Cobalt SS. GM designed the Cobalt specifically to compete against performance imports like the Si and RSX-S. Because we all know the sales record breaker the Cavalier was...

Back on topic, I agree with geo, that GM should've brought over a performance Astra. I planned to buy an Astra just before they came to the states, but the current cars are too expensive and not efficient enough for the class. I could certainly afford it, but it's like the Scion tC with the TRD supercharger. Why bother paying for that, when I could have a more well-rounded Si, or GTI for similar money? There are, unfortunately, other options, though few as good looking as the Astra.

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I think that the Astra is about the nicest compact out there style and content wise (and for the money there's no touching it). And it's certainly the nicest on the materials side of things. But it needs the Cobalt SS engine (the suspension isn't all that bad really). Then it'll hold a candle to vehicles like the Mazda 3 and the GTi. But then it also needs a good mid-level engine option as well, something in the 170 hp range that still allows it to get mid 30's mileage numbers, perhaps the 1.4T that was rumored back in the day. And for gods sake give the damn car an MP3/Aux input. Who builds a car nowadays for the US market without that and expects to market to anyone under 70.

Fix those items, then market the hell out of it. It'll sell just fine, no discount required..

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Agreed. A stripped down 2+2 based on the sky platform would be amazing. Offer the Sky as a slightly more high end vehicle as it is.

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You've got that the wrong way around. More Saturn dealerships are NOT needed. Less Chevy dealerships is the answer. You don't need six Chevy dealership within 30 minutes, that's market oversaturation.

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