GREAT EXPECTATIONS: THE SATURN STORY

SATURN WAS MORE THAN JUST A CAR. IT WAS AN ATTEMPT TO RADICALLY REINVENT GENERAL MOTORS, THE WORLD'S LARGEST AND WEALTHIEST AUTOMAKER

- ANGUS MACKENZIE

Maybe we were led to expect too much.” Even on the first page of the first test of GM’s all-new Saturn in our November 1990 issue, the sense of disappointment was palpable. For years, we’d been told Saturn would be a wondercar built in a factory of the future, something that would show the world Detroit could build a better small car than the Japanese for less money. GM boss Roger B. Smith insisted in 1985 that Saturn would be “a complete, radical change from anything going on anywhere in auto manufacturing.”

But from behind the wheel of the early-build sedans and coupes we sampled at the GM Proving Ground in Milford, Michigan, in the fall of 1990, it certainly didn’t feel that way. “We came away from the experience somewhat frustrated,” former MotorTrend editor Daniel Charles Ross wrote. “While it’s a legitimate alternative for many import intenders … [Saturn] shows not only how far GM has traveled, but that it still has a ways to go.”

The Saturn story began in mid-1982, not long after Smith, a GM lifer who had spent his entire career in the finance department, became the chairman and CEO of the world's largest and richest automaker. Although argumentative and autocratic and steeped in the institutional arrogance that pervaded GM at the time, Smith was nonetheless aware the company faced enormous challenges.