THE AUTOEXTREMIST
Tuesday, May 5, 2009 at 09:15AM May 6, 2009
Uh, Roger, while you’re at it...
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
(Posted 5/5, 9:25AM) Detroit. The report came in Monday that Roger Penske was considering buying Saturn from General Motors for his Penske Automotive Group. Saturn - the one GM division that is determined to not go quietly into the night - has been seeking suitors to help transition it from an also-ran GM brand to a rejuvenated force to be reckoned with in the North American automobile market.
When I sat with Jill Lajdziak - Saturn’s enthusiastic and capable General Manager going on eight weeks ago now - and she first laid out the idea for me that Saturn was considering going off on its own using its outstanding dealer network to become an independent distribution company, one that would eventually “cherry-pick” the very best products from around the globe to stock its showroom, there was only one person I thought of who would be perfect for a scenario like that.
And that was Roger Penske.
I’m actually surprised it took this long, as I stated eight years ago that Roger would be The One who could ultimately turn around GM. That it never happened was not a complete surprise, as Roger likes to go his own way, and clashing with a recalcitrant board of directors and a culture that was ingrained in doing things its way - even though that way had grown painfully obsolete and out of touch years before - did not hold any real appeal for a dynamic force like Penske. (Penske had been considered at one point to run Chrysler in the post-Iacocca era, long before the Germans got involved, so he has a history of being considered for running a major car company or at least thinking about it.)
In the end, Penske rightly quelled any personal interest to place the crowning achievement on his already glittering legacy by saving the once-iconic American automobile company and instead focused on his own burgeoning auto empire, the Penske Automotive Group.
But we now have arrived at a point in time where Roger may just be lured into saving at least a piece of GM.
As most AE readers know, Saturn has endured a star-crossed roller-coaster ride in its brief existence. Originally conceptualized as a new way for GM to build automobiles, Saturn instead created a new way of selling automobiles. Propelled by a brilliant advertising campaign conceived by the late Hal Riney, which took a decidedly average car - and I mean average - and created an almost surreal aura for it in the American consumer consciousness, Saturn became an unexpected hit.
The simple, folksy message shrewdly crafted and expertly executed by Riney and his team harkened back to a simpler time when the folks down the road were your neighbors and everything was as it was supposed to be, and hordes of Americans bought it hook, line and sinker. And for a brief shining moment in time Saturn had the automotive world by the tail. Saturn’s customers were so fervent in their belief that it truly was “A different kind of car, a different kind of company” that a majority of them actually didn’t associate Saturn with being a GM-owned company at all.
But of course the good times didn’t last. Seeing the lavish attention being paid to Saturn both internally in the corporation and externally in the media, GM’s other divisional leaders were out to rectify things, and that meant that Oldsmobile and Chevrolet would get their due, one way or the other, at Saturn’s expense.
Just when Saturn was in desperate need of new products to keep its new customers loyal to the brand, GM diverted product and marketing money to both Oldsmobile and Chevrolet. In Oldsmobile’s case the rationale was actually put forth that Saturn buyers would/could just shop Oldsmobile if they ran out of product room in the Saturn lineup. As ludicrous as that sounds today that passed for rational thought internally at GM, and as you can imagine, from that moment on Saturn was left to languish as a sideshow within the GM Empire, as Saturn loyalists drifted off to mainly import brands like Toyota and Honda.
Fast forward to several years ago - when Jill Lajdziak assumed the reins of the division - and a move to resuscitate the brand gained traction within the corporation, much of it lead by the sheer will and irrepressible presence of Ladjiak. The corporate overlords listened, and Saturn actually was blessed with product and marketing money again in a bid to rejuvenate the brand’s presence in the U.S. market.
And it almost worked, with the Saturn Aura becoming one of GM’s darling products in the new Lutzian Era, and the buzz began building again for the brand. Not content to stop there, Bob Lutz began pushing the idea of a direct link between some of the fine Opel products being made in Germany and the future product portfolio of Saturn. But just a year and a half after the Aura was introduced, the corporation weighed in with the Chevrolet Malibu, which, as Bob Lutz put it was “everything we know how to do in one car.”
And true to form, Saturn’s new moment in the sun didn’t last long. Lost in the crossfire of GM’s obsession with keeping eight divisional balls in the air - even though GM’s market share had been eroding for years - the rebirth of Saturn came to a screeching halt as massive amounts of marketing money were diverted to Chevrolet for the Malibu.
In a flash, and in the new reality for GM, Saturn, the once “golden child” of the company, had become expendable to a corporation teetering on insolvency.
The Plan for the New Saturn is to take the brand’s outstanding network of dealers and forge a national distribution company that will revolve around Saturn’s legacy of customer service, while bringing in “the best of the best” products from around the world – some even specifically crafted for Saturn – so that the Saturn brand could survive and maybe even thrive again.
Back to my meeting with Jill Ladjiak. When she presented The Plan for Saturn to me I knew it was a long shot, especially given the approximately 60-day window she and her team would be working with. As I told her, there was only one guy I could think of who could make the plan happen, someone with the knowledge, talent and, most important, the financial wherewithal to put it together and pull it off and that was Roger Penske.
And now that it’s official that Roger and his team are studying Ladjiak’s plan, Saturn suddenly has new life yet again. Only this time, if Roger Penske is the driving force behind it, I would say Saturn has more than an excellent chance of making it, and for the long haul too.
But I have one more request.
In this new world order we’re living with - where the unions and Washington politicos will most likely be running General Motors right into the ground - I fear for the most iconic nameplate in the GM Empire, the Chevrolet Corvette.
In this doomsday scenario of a neutered GM, I see the company cranking out Shiny Happy Smiley cars that don’t sell to consumers who won’t care. And under this scenario of Not Good I see a great nameplate like Corvette and all of its glorious history - being kicked to the curb like yesterday’s news - unappreciated, misunderstood, unwelcome and unwanted.
So Roger, while you’re at it, why don’t you see if you can pry the rights to the Corvette and its factory away from GM? It would do just fine in the newly-reinvigorated Saturn retail network.
And then I won’t have to write about yet another GM nameplate that deserved so much better.
Thanks for listening.
See another live episode of "Autoline After Hours" hosted by Autoline Detroit's John McElroy, with Peter De Lorenzo and auto industry PR veteran Jason Vines this Thursday evening, May 7, at 7:00PM EDT at www.autolinedetroit.tv. By the way, if you'd like to subscribe to the Autoline After Hours podcasts, click on the following links:
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