Penske pulls-out

[pope]

Roger Penske has pulled out of the deal to buy Saturn dealerships. He could not get a deal with Renault to sell they cars in the US, so he has dropped out of the deal. GM will pull the plug on Saturn in a forthcoming announcement that will sever the dealerships and end the current selling of the Saturn brand.

[So Cal Mark]

no real loss in my opinion except for the 13000 workers GM will lay off. Penske was trying to get Chinese cars to rebadge as Saturns. I service several Saturns, and I'm not impressed with those cars in any way.

[mdrburchette]

Saturns are no better or no worse than any domestic car. What the company had going for them in the earlier years was their CSI. They bent over backwards to accomodate owners and boasted a 98% customer satisfaction rating.
Penske rebadging Chinese cars is no worse than GM having their Buicks built there and shipped over. Either way, it's causing job loss here in the US. There will just be more jobs lost when all the dealerships close.

[pope]

Chinese built cars were never really in the mix. Roger had thought he had a deal with Renault, who was going to let their South Korean subsidiary Samsung built cars for him, and rebadge them. The Renault board of directors nixed the deal yesterday and that put an end to the plans.

[Gunsmith]

Too bad I thought the Sky was a pretty cool car. I don't like to see any American brand go down but I am not a big fan of rebadging imports either. Call the car what it really is upfront.

[Kevin1]

Losing Saturn as a brand isn't too terrible, but the possible loss of 13,000 more American jobs is. Too many conflicting reports published to know what will come next. Forbes says that there are no layoffs planned and Saturn's manufacturing will continue making parts for other brands. Detroit Free Press reports 13,000 jobs will be lost. And what about the Saturn dealers? Will they be able to sell other GM vehicles, or will they be forced to close?
How can the economy absorb any more job losses?

[MNspiderman]

Saturn's not my favorite car either. Except if it came to Sky vs Solstice I'd take the Sky because it looks nicer.

[pope]

The entire Saturn organization will be gone by the end of 2010, with layoffs and dealer closings happening throughout 2010. Saturn dealerships will not be able to become other GM dealerships. GM is going to wind down this business. They had prepared for this incase the deal did not go through.

[So Cal Mark]

I'll agree the Sky is much better looking than the Solstice, but it's not really a Saturn. Rebadged and slightly rebodied Pontiac doesn't make it unique and buyers recognized that and hardly purchased any of them.

[jimincalif]

Not to mention the Solstice/Sky is tiny inside. I tried to get into someone's Solstice once, no way, the spider has much more room.

[pope]

The Sky really is the Vauxhall VX220 and the Opel Speedster from 2000 redone for the American market, but they look almost exactly the same. Infact when GM decided to sell and build them here, Opel dropped the Speedster and renamed the Sky the Opel GT. Pontiac used the base platform and decided to do a rather modest redesign to fit Pontiacs look. These cars are no longer built as GM closed the factory a while back.
These are tiny cars with little room. Built as a true 2 seater, unlike the Spider that was a 2+.