If Only They Had Listened To Me

I remember arguing in some business class in graduate school that if General Motors was going to turn its flagging fortunes around (it was in its death slide already back then), it needed to shed some of its brands.  Instead it had done the opposite.  It had created another brand - Saturn - a decade before.

If it had still been on top of the world, it might have made sense to add another layer of redundancy to its already overreaching lines, but going all the way back to Ronald Reagan's days the Japanese had started to eat up market share, and GM didn't need to create a product whose primary competitor - another GM division, Chevrolet - was going to be harmed most by its introduction.

And then there was the whole brand confusion/diffusion issue.

Well, if only GM executives had listened to me  in 1996:

So Long, Saturn
By Joann Muller, Forbes

General Motors said Wednesday it would wind down its Saturn brand after Penske Automotive Group abruptly called off negotiations to buy the unit.

Penske pulled the plug because it couldn't secure future products for Saturn showrooms beyond 2011, when GM is scheduled to stop producing Saturns.

Although it had negotiated a supply agreement with another manufacturer, the deal was rejected by that manufacturer's board of directors, Penske said in a statement. "Without that agreement, the company has determined that the risks and uncertainties related to the availability of future products prohibit the company from moving forward with this transaction."

Penske did not identify the manufacturer, but press reports last spring said Penske was in talks with Renault subsidiary Renault Samsung Motors of Korea to bring small cars to the U.S. and rebrand them as Saturns. [link]

I never quite understood why GM was talking to Penske in the first place.  He simply wanted to be the distributor in the process (accounts of his wanting to buy Saturn were erroneous).  Distribution is the easy part.  Making cars at a profit was the hurdle.  Why would  Renault Samsung Motors need him at all?  The dealership network was already established in this country and the Renault-Nissan alliance could have easily addressed the distribution issues relating to shipping cars to the USA.

In any case, GM factories in this country that had been making the Saturn models were doomed when GM filed bankruptcy.  At best the Saturn was going to become a cheap foreign import.

Now 350 Saturn dealers are doomed as well.

With tens of thousands of Americans thrown out of work.

If only they had listened ...