After several months of silence, it appears Penske has opted to retract his offer to purchase Saturn from General Motors.

Following a script so eerily similar to my earlier prediction that it prompted me to buy lottery tickets, Penske had planned to use the Saturn dealer network as a domestic channel for future distribution of Renault-Samsung’s line of rebadged Renault and Nissan products. In the interim though, GM was going to continue supplying some existing vehicles to the Tupperware Car Company through 2012, give or take.

So it’s so long to the plastic-fantastic arm of General Motors. Unlike Pontiac, we hardly knew ye.

Back on April 1st, an article appeared on NewsTimes.com claiming that Saturn had found a suitor.  While many initially dismissed it as an April Fool’s joke, Saturn of Danbury owner (and early Saturn insider) Todd Ingersoll was telling anybody who would listen that a deal was in the works that would assure Saturn’s long-term future. While Ingersoll didn’t come forward with the specifics of the deal or the name of the interested party (or parties), it seemed like an honest attempt at reassuring consumers that Saturn wasn’t a dead brand walking.

Weeks have come and gone, however, and nothing seems to have come of it. Meanwhile, the Pontiac and Hummer branches have been lopped off the future GM family tree, and Saab and Saturn have degenerated to sell or scrap status. While GM’s overall attitude toward a potential sale of the Saab brand seems fairly positive, the future of Saturn doesn’t look so rosy. Earlier estimates predicted the Saturn network would stay around until 2011 or 2012 — plenty of time to court new ownership — but GM is now saying that it’s on the chopping block for the end of this year.

So what is the key to Saturn’s future? It all comes down to Chrysler.

Continue reading Lord Byron — French Bread, Italian Spices and Tupperware

For those who are trying to pick the important details out of the GM restructuring stories flying around today, here’s what we know so far:

(Updated 5:00 p.m., 4/27)
– Pontiac is to be phased out entirely by the end of 2010; Hummer and Saturn will be phased out by the end of 2009; Saab will hopefully be sold off shortly, and it seems GM is fairly confident this will happen.
– The G8 will be gone as of the end of this model year (2009).
– The G6, G3, Solstice and Torrent will slowly disappear through the 2009 and 2010 model years.
– The Vibe will likely be the final production vehicle in the lineup.
– More than 20,000 layoffs are expected, though it’s not known yet which divisions (obviously, Pontiac-related is a safe bet here) and facilities will be impacted.
– There will be an “acceleration” of plant idling and shut-down along with a significant reduction in the dealer network — reportedly up to 40%.
– The restructuring plan will result in the taxpayers and union trusts owning a hefty chunk of General Motors.
– Bankruptcy is still not off the table.
– There is currently no viable offer on the table for the Saturn dealership network.

Click through for more.

Continue reading Quick Hit — GM Restructuring

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“So, yeah, it’s a new Focus, but it’s not the one we want. In fact, had we been asked what we’d want for the latest Focus, ‘old mechanicals,’ ‘horrifying exterior styling,’ and ‘no hatchbacks’ wouldn’t exactly have sprung to mind.” – “Automobile” magazine, on the 2008 Ford Focus

“Not only does Saturn need the Astra, but North American buyers need it too.” – “Automobile”, on the 2008 Saturn Astra

Focus Sales in 1Q 2008: 49,070

Astra Sales in 1Q 2008: 1,477

“Four, five press cars a week!” The violence of his own enthusiasm was starting to get the better of the old fellow; sweat stains were visibly creeping down the wrinkled sides of his cheap Hawaiian shirt as he waved both hands forcefully in an effort to keep my attention. “The manufacturers know they need to put cars in my driveway, because when I write about a car, it puts customers on the front door of that damn dealership Monday morning, bet your ass.” Ugh. It’s common practice for manufacturers to “match up” journalists on press events, and judging from my experience they aren’t exactly using eHarmony’s patented relationship-predicting algorithms to do it, because I keep getting matched with drooling morons who appear to hate my guts from the moment I climb into the airport courtesy car. Oh well. Might as well keep the conversation going, if only for my own amusement.

“But how do you manage to review five cars a week?” I asked in as innocent a tone as I could muster. “I mean, how do you even drive that many?”

“I DON’T!” was the near-shouted reply. “My daughter drives ‘em, and if she likes a car, I’ll give it some of my time. We don’t even own any cars any more. No reason to. They’re free when you know what you’re talking about.” Clearly, it was going to be a long ride to the test site, but it turned out to an instructive one. For nearly three decades, I’d been a passive consumer of automotive magazines and websites, always wondering what it would be like to make it to the “inside” and actually live the lifestyle of a super-cool automotive journalist. Then one day, our senior editor, Zerin Dube, picked me out of utter obscurity to impose my worthless opinions on you, our valued readers – and before I knew it, I was a player in the whirlwind motor-journo lifestyle of free food, free hotels, free fuel, and all the bacon I can eat at the breakfast bar. It’s kind of like being Paris Hilton, without the pocket dogs and the “Nightshot” videos with Rick what’s-his-name.

Unfortunately, in the same way that Ms. Hilton appears to have gone, oh, shall we say, completely insane as a result of her fabulous life, I’m starting to suspect that all autowriters eventually lose their minds as well. It would explain a lot, you know. It would solve the mystery of why I recently had some crazy old dude whose sole racing experience consisted of transit driving in a cross-country rally give me a drunken lecture about my braking points on-track. It would help me understand why people who barely earn fifty grand a year prance around like the Prince of Wales and bully the staff at the press event hotels. Most importantly, it might offer a clue as to how the Press As A Whole did such an incompetent job of reviewing the latest arrivals on the small-car scene.

Continue reading Avoidable Contact #12: Why the motoring press can’t even Focus on its own Astra.