2005 Saturn Aura Concept

Rüsselsheim's Finest are Closer than We Think

Plastic polycarbonate panels, practical four-door coupes and very friendly sales associates. Sound familiar? It's Saturn, General

In recent years, Saturn's once-fresh products have become stale against the more advanced competition, but they're about to catch up in a big way. (Photo: General Motors of Canada)

Motors' answer to the imports. A product of the late 1980s, Saturn's cars were the kind of vehicles that GM hoped people shopping for a Honda or Toyota would buy, but the import buyer never really caught on.

What started out with a bang, sputtered and stalled quite quickly. Saturn's once-fresh products became stale against the more advanced competition. Even with the introduction of the midsize L model (for customers who had grown out of their smaller SLs) that came along in the late '90s and the affordable VUE SUV, now only

Saturn will pull the wraps off the Aura Concept, a European-inspired vehicle which GM claims is a sneak peek of things to come. (Photo: General Motors of Canada)

a few years old, the company never regained the ground it lost.

To save Saturn and keep it in the minds of the choosy North American automobile consumer, General Motors figured that a brand revolution was necessary. It was recently initiated in the form of Saturn's first minivan, the RELAY.

Unlike any Saturn previously made the RELAY uses a conventional steel body, and is a direct "clone" of all the other GM midsize vans. It wasn't the promising sign dealers hoped for, going against the brand's image, but it was a sign from the top that things were indeed changing.