GM Moving Non-Brand, Non-Marketing Functions of Saturn into GM System
DETROIT--It is highly likely that Saturn will lose its tradition of having specially dedicated assembly plants, such as Spring Hill, Tenn., as General Motors Corp. introduces new products in the future, acknowledged Bob Lutz at a press conference on December 2.
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| Saturn will lose its tradition of having specially dedicated assembly plants, such as Spring Hill, Tenn., as General Motors Corp. introduces new products in the future. (Photo: General Motors of Canada) |
"As we move away from this expensive luxury of having Saturn as a completely autonomous auto company, which frankly the customer couldn't care less about, we will move forward to integrating (Saturn) into the broader general Motors system," said Lutz, Product Development and Chairman, GM North America.
As new products are introduced, there is an opportunity for future non-Saturn products to be built at Spring Hill, Lutz said, but added there are no such plans yet.
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| First conceived in the early 1980s, Saturn was set up as a nearly independent car company with its own new plant in Spring Hill. (Photo: General Motors of Canada) |
When Saturn was first conceived in the early 1980s by former GM Chairman Roger Smith, as the company's Japanese import car fighter, it was set up as a nearly independent car company with its own new plant in Spring Hill. This was done even as GM closed other facilities, vehicle platforms, chairman and president, special contract with the UAW, and dedicated sales and public relations departments.
Unlike many other grand experiments that were tried and failed under Smith, which accelerated GM's slide from about 40 percent of the United States market in 1980 to its low ebb to less than 29 percent today, Saturn has survived in a quasi-independent state.