Penske Buys Saturn

Former Nascar racing and auto dealer magnate Roger Penske has agreed to purchase the Saturn brand from GM. Based on Saturn's current lineup, this would seem to be a wise move. But much has changed.

The first generation Saturns were actually quite good. That and the haggle-free buying experience should have been a huge success for GM.

With the second generation Saturns, GM lost the thread. We've had a Saturn SL-2 in the family for ten years. It has been decently reliable. But that's the best can be said for it. Otherwise it is a noisy, cheaply built, mediocre appliance that offers little in the way of driving dynamics. It is simply no fun. The SL-2 devolved into the Ion, arguably the most uninviting car GM ever built. There were other Saturns, all equally forgettable.

That all changed when Saturn started re-badging Belgian built, German engineered Opels. Suddenly Saturn had a small car - the Astra - that was more than competitive with the lofty design and assembly standards and superior driving experience of the Volkswagen Golf and 1-series BMW. In addition, the Saturn Aura, built on a new shared GM North American mid-sized chassis benefited from GM's too-little-too-late surge in making actually good cars.

So Penske will keep the brand alive. Unknown at the moment: Will Saturn continue to rebadge Astras now that Magna owns Opel? Will Auras still be made on GM-designed chassis? Or will Penske decide to build a wholly new car? There has also been talk of importing Korean-built cars from Samsung. Yes, Samsung makes cars too.

What we do know is that, product aside, the business of the car business has never been more interesting than it is just now.

Update: "Controlled by Renault, Samsung builds Nissan spec vehicles which could replace current Saturn vehicles if everything falls into place."