I really thought about this question when I was reading an article at the Detroit News entitled “Saturn may drop L-Series” beause of disappointing sales. Another article pointed out that people knew that it was the same platform as the Chevrolet Malibu and Pontiac Grand Am to the point of using that as leverage to get better deals on Grand Ams and Malibus below Saturn’s no-hassle pricing. Also, GM learned that people were not going to switch from their troublefree 200,000 + mile Camry’s and Accords with friendly dealers and excellent customer support for this vehicle.
What really made me think about this was that the two divisions were known as both the ‘experimental technology’ and the ‘middle line between a basic Chevrolet and a luxurious Buick’ divisions. Here were some of Oldsmobile’s innovations that appeared in Oldsmobiles before being adapted to other GM platforms:
First Hydra-Matic (automatic) transmission in 1940,
First airbag in 1974,
First use of acrylic body panels in 1981.
First American built car to offer FM Radio in a factory stereo.
First American built car to use front-wheel drive (Toronado)
First American car to use GM’s patentened Distributorless Ignition system
First American car to use modern electronic fuel injection (excluding the late 1950’s early 1960’s Corvette electro-mechanical system)
Where Oldsmobile was the ‘testing and technological refinement’ brand of GM, Saturn appears to continue the same ‘testing and technological refinement’ but adding ’sales and marketing testing’ to it’s innovativion such as:
First American car brand that did not (until recently) work under the same UAW contracts as other GM operations.
First American car brand (until recently) to have all ‘horizontal combination’ operations built under one roof in Spring Hill, Tn.
First American car brand to offer ‘no hassle’, fixed, non-negotiable pricing on it’s products.
First American car brand in over 30 years to have an entire product line on it’s own specific platforms (until the L-300).
First American car brand that once you bought the car, took a picture of you with the car and introduced you to all employees from the mechanic to the janitor.
First American car brand to invite it’s owners to the annual employee picnic with the factory workers in Spring Hill, Tn.
First American car brand to have a car (Ion) with the universal center dashboard to where the car could be built in either left-hand or right-hand steer in less than ten different parts like the Toyota Echo.
First American car brand that had it’s own seperate dealerships (until recently) that did not sell other manufacturer’s new cars and were not owned by GM dealers of other GM brands.
First American car brand that focused the selling of the car not on the car itself but on the after-care service of the car using family-room-style waiting areas, computer terminals connected to the Internet, and children’s play areas.
First American car brand that you could “build” your car over the Internet to your specifications and then referred to the nearest Saturn dealer where they contacted you to complete the final details such as financing and delivery.
First American car brand that used plastic panels on all of it’s cars (except hood and trunk lids).
First American car brand to have it’s own seperate engineering team for a particular brand (until recently). This team actually invented Traction Control and tested it to work out the bugs. However, GM brass decided that Cadillac would offer this feature first on their vehicles before allowing Saturn to incorporate it into their vehicles.
First American car brand (non-luxury) to offer traction control on it’s vehicles.
First American car brand (non-luxury) to offer navigation systems and On-Star emergency help systems.
First American car brand to offer on-site child care for it’s Employees at it’s factory.
Therefore, if you look at the ‘firsts’ and the attempts of both companies to appeal to a ‘middle line’ of customer that wanted more features than a basic Chevrolet while not being able to afford the luxury of a Buick, they were the same. I found it interesting that in many parts of the country, where independent Saturn dealers were going under, GM allowed faithful Oldsmobile dealers to purchase them and become the Saturn dealers. Also, I find it interesting that for years, the Oldsmobile symbol was a space rocket while the Saturn car brand was named after the Saturn space mission rockets (per the Saturn pdf downloadable from Saturn.com) of NASA and not the planet Saturn contrary to what people think. According to the .pdf file, Saturn’s name of being influential in the space race of the 1960’s against the USSR paralleled GM’s small-car race of the 1990’s and beyond against the Japanese economy cars built by Toyota and Honda.
I am wondering now if this was a purposeful well-planned evolution all along for I am now convinced that Saturn is really “Oldsmobile Jr.” Is Saturn really the “Different Kind of Company,” or the offspring who inherited Oldsmobile’s testing and technological refinement traits while adding marketing and corporate traits?
