The message from drivers like Woods is clear: it’s time for the General Motors division that touts itself as “a different kind of car company” to start building different kinds of cars. “They have to make a decision,” says a former GM strategist. “They have too many satisfied customers out there to screw it up.” Though Saturn has been a bona fide hit-and its no-hassle dealerships have become the industry’s most-imitated gimmick-customers, analysts and dealers say Saturn needs to sell bigger cars to really shift into high gear. Saturn president Donald Hudler insists Saturn can succeed without a roomier car; three out of four Saturn owners have another car, many of them minivans, he says. But he admits he hopes to expand beyond the current 286,000-cars-a-year level, and the clock is ticking. “There isn’t any date on the wall that says it has to be done by now, but the longer you wait, the bigger the lost opportunity,” he says.
Help may be on the way. Dealers say Saturn is readying plans to build a bigger sedan based on a model from GM’s European Opel line; the new car is being tested at GM’s Wilmington, Dela., plant. “It’s far from a done deal,” Hudler insists, and union officials say the project is running into delays. But dealers are convinced the car will get a green light. Still, will buyers believe a redesigned Opel is really a Saturn? Can the company’s ad gurus, who’ve hyped the Spring Hill, Tenn., factory in TV commercials, re-create the aura around a regular old GM plant in Wilmington? And can Saturn transfer the can-do attitude of its young work force to the old-line union regulars at Wilmington? Hudler, Saturn’s ad execs and the plant’s Wheel Liner Installation team say it’s possible, but not everyone is convinced. “The Saturn mystique was created in part because the identity of the car was tied into the identity of the factory,” says MIT auto expert Martin Anderson. “Once you do that, you can’t go changing cars willy-nilly.”
For now, Saturn dealers are busy peddling the 1996 redesign of Saturn’s trusty old sedan and awaiting a “reskinned” coupe for 1997. They’re also boosting profits by hawking-no-hassle style-reinspected used cars, including competing products like Hondas. Hudler says a pitch to GM’s board for a new car could occur in a few months. There’s no telling what will happen then, but here’s one clue. At New York University, more than 1,000 M.B.A. students have studied Saturn’s strategy and given presentations to a mock GM board. Their verdict: Saturn should build a minivan or a sport-utility vehicle. “[Prototypes for] a lot of that stuff have already been built,” says Saturn engineer Curt Gibbs. “They’re hidden away in a dark closet somewhere.” As Saturn fans like Aaron Woods look to trade up, the real GM board will soon decide whether those new designs ever see the light of day.
