Who remembers Saturn, the upstart division of General Motors whose mission was to be a “different kind of car company”? When it was launched in the mid-1980s, that was true as Saturn’s approach to manufacturing, marketing, pricing, and its dealer network was different from that of Chevrolet, Buick, and others. By the time the company folded after the “Big Recession” 15 years ago, the cars had largely become rebadged versions of other GM products, The SC was a sporty coupe whose first generation included this 1991 edition with a mere 634 claimed miles. It may never have been titled.
What I remember most about Saturn was its “no-haggle” sales policy – the price on the sticker is what you paid. You didn’t need to agonize over numbers in the finance manager’s office. Also recalled was its use of plastic body panels, more accurately described as being made of polymer and were, thus, dent-resistant (also corrosion-proof). At Saturn’s sales peak in 1994, they built and sold more than 286,000 cars across all models. The seller’s car is powered by a DOHC inline-4 with a displacement of 1.9 liters.
The seller doesn’t go into how this particular car came to be. It’s said to have only 634 miles and has never had an owner (which tells me it was never titled). How did this happen and where has this automobile been for the past 33 years? It’s said to be as good as new, and we assume everything is original – including consumables like fluids and tires. All functions on the car are said to work and there are no reported issues.
But what would you need to do to make a car that’s averaged less than 20 miles per year viable on the highway? The Saturn currently calls Orange County, California home, and the time capsule piece is available here on craigslist for $9,500. Our special thanks go to Barn Finder “numskal” for this wild tip!
These are decent (not great) little cars.
My Wife & I drove one from Eureka,CA to-
Chattanooga,Tennessee to deliver it to our
Son.Got to see a lot of America that we hadn’t
seen before.
I had a blue Saturn coupe but it was a 2002 with the 3rd side door. It was great on gas and for an American car it did not feel cheap inside like most other brands from general motors. To me it was on par with Honda interior quality.
I still wish that they didn’t kill the brand.
That all being said this example should be in a museum with those short miles and/or taken out to the radwood 1990s era car shows.
The brand was already dead, the last ones being just rebadged Opels.
An unfair characterization. It was not a dead brand. At the end, Saturn sold more vehicles in the U.S. than Buick. But, Buick was chosen to survive based on its sales in China. (Yet, more than a dozen years later, Buick’s brand identity is still murky at best.)
The collaboration with Opel was intended to maintain some distinction in the product line from other U.S. GM brands while addressing the reality of contemporary development and manufacturing costs, and economies of scale. In the last 35 years no GM brand has equalled the customer satisfaction levels that Saturn achieved during its 20 year run. The brand was always about more than just the vehicles.
buick’s reputation has been butchered. long gone are the elegant sedans and coupes, in are bloated crossovers and suvs
GM killed Hummer at the same time they knocked off Pontiac and Saturn. Right after they jumped in bed with the government.
The DOHC was a far better motor than the base SOHC. It made quite a bit more power and was smoother. I had a co-worker who had an SC2 with the DOHC. He raced it into the ground, and as for this car, if I had the space for it, I’d open my wallet.
Saturn parts hoarder here.
The inline-4 DOHC of later editions (remember, this is a first-year example of the model) is considered pretty much bulletproof–as in “they don’t die; people kill them” (similar to older Jeeps, Fords, etc.). There tend to be a variety of reasons not to get a first-gen S-series, among them the obnoxious power seat belts, some engine improvements in later models, lack of air bags, obsolete radio, etc. And a 33-year-old hangar queen may need new hoses, etc. that are now getting harder to come by even through the “usual suspects” online.
But anyone getting this should be getting it for an auto museum to represent the controversial history/role of Saturn in the market. Someone looking for a performance car will want more horses than this thing has, to say nothing of a manual transmission.
Power seatbelts – HA!
I was in a friend’s Escort years ago and the blasted thing launched into the chili dog I was eating and sent it smushing down my shirt and into my lap.
Talk about obnoxious!
Good enough reason for me to add it to the many reasons I dislike Escorts.
The early Saturn radios were the typical GM-Delco product of the time, and they were the same as those used on all the other brands save Cadillac, the only difference were yellow graphics.
I too am “pro-Saturn”. in 2002, I picked up a ’93 SL2 cheap, ton of miles, like 230,000 some, $300 bucks, everything still worked as new, including the “guillotine” seat beats. I put another 10K on it until the odometer broke, and and put another 10K on it, I bet. I sold it for $400, talk about almost free driving. Not a bad car, poorly engineered. Oil filter required right tire removal, coils shorted out, and a starter, forgetabout it, all very hard to work on.
My daughters 2nd car after the Dodge Shadow, was a SC1, I forget the year. I compared it to a 4 seat Opel GT with a trunk. Wasn’t a bad car, nothing special, she didn’t have it long.
This car, since some object to my made up stories, I can only say, it was PROBABLY some kind of leftover stock, mileage indicates it moved around some, but sat in a storage facility. The twin cam wasn’t the best performer, but got GREAT gas mileage, 30s, and ran forever.
I read, Saturn didn’t turn a profit since 1994, it was the 3rd best selling car in America, although I find that hard to believe. It operated in the red ever since. By 2000 they were losing $3000 on every car. Saturn had that “family” schtick, and their customer appreciation gigs, sucked a lot of people in, but in the end, were no match for the Asian cars. The plant has been retooled to produce EVs now, another sure bet( cough), but for a while, the folks around Spring Hill, TN. had it made. I read, a Saturn worker made between $36,000 to $41,700/year, PLUS benefits in 1998. Kind of sounds like “Kenosha Syndrome” to me.
I will concede that you never want to work on a Saturn starter. But in my experience, EVERY car make or model since, say, the 1960s or so, maybe the bloated 1970s “land yachts,” has had both some brilliant stroke of engineering AND some aspect that could only make you say, “What the @#*&)+#! were they THINKING?!?!?!?!?” I had a car with the easiest oil filter location to change combined with a starter you had to remove the engine to get to……
I had a plastic front fender smashed on one of my Saturns in a hit-and-run during a government-contract job once. The agency was willing to pay for it if I took it to two body shops for estimates, which came in at $2,500-3,000. I muttered obscenities, jumped online, and a week later found a replacement fender in the right color on the other side of the country for $130 plus shipping. When it arrived, I had it replaced in 15 minutes. It took them over a year to finally cut me a check for my “invoice” of $300 for the fender and the knowledge and trouble to replace it. You start to understand after a trial like that why people don’t work to save taxpayers’ money…………….
The Spring Hill plant currently makes the Cadillac XT5, XT6 and Lyric, it has a mix of ICE and EV production.
Given all the hype around Saturn when it was launched, it wouldn’t surprise me if someone set this aside in the hopes that the hype was real and that Saturn would have a significant and influential place in automotive history.
I rented a Saturn Vue once to get back from the UP of Michigan to Ohio in the Spring one year and got caught in a blizzard. That car has all the bells and whistles, for then, like traction control and ESC and I drove home without any drama. I still dream about coming across a Saturn Sky Red Line for something I can afford. But to be fair, a buddy that owned a garage said they were a nightmare to work on.
The post-2000 Saturn designs (which my wife disaffectionately calls “Loser Saturns”) reflected GM’s work to force Saturn back into the GM “orthodoxy.” The “nightmare to work on” aspect is widely attributed to that move, which Saturn loyalists/”conspiracy theorists” ascribe to malice on the part of GM against their “maverick” sibling brand. This is odd, because the Saturn loyalists will expound to no end on how “GM stole the brilliant 1.9L four and V6 for their other lines and forced crappier engines on the new Saturn models!”
I had a ’95 SC1 standard for a few years. When I first drove it to work, a 130 mile round trip, 100 miles of it on I95, I got 44 MPG. I checked it 3 times til I could believe it. I was also shocked at the poor power performance, it was pretty scary pulling out into traffic. A quick tuneup revealed a nearly clogged fuel filter and viola! it responded with noticeably better acceleration, but it was simply a seriously underpowered car. With the new fuel filter MPG dropped to 42 MPG and I still had to turn off the AC to pull out into traffic.
I found the car to be very reliable with a super cheap interior. I relocated closer to work and bought a real car. Remember to check the gas and fill up the oil!
I actually was attracted to the Saturn when they came out.I liked the little coup. When I think of the Saturn I think of an unfinished story that could’ve been a success but for some reason it wasn’t. Maybe someone will tell me what happened some day.
Well worth the asking price for a decent car to drive into the ground, after all, what can you get for 10K today?
I liked the no haggle and reasonable pricing.
The “sky” will be a higher dollar collector in the future for sure.
I know GM was fighting going union in TN as the reason for Saturn was to keep it low pricing but the main closure was GM picked this line and others to end.
Its a fair price for a car that will run and run and run.
We moved to AZ in 92′ and the gorgeous blonde next door had one of these same year and color.
I owned a 2000 L Series (1st year), and it was one of the best cars I’ve owned. I passed it on to a couple at church who needed transportation. They drove it for another 3 years before trading it in.
I actually was attracted to the Saturn when they came out.I liked the little coup. When I think of the Saturn I think of an unfinished story that could’ve been a success but for some reason it wasn’t. Maybe someone will tell me what happened some day.
Anyone who thinks a tire has to be removed on a Saturn S-series to change an oil filter is simply wrong, or an incompetent technician. Talk to Saturn technicians who came from other brands—especially GM brands—and they’ll tell you that, overall, the S-series cars are some of the easiest cars to work on.
Spent 16 years with Saturn on both the retail side and with corporate. There are a lot of factually wrong assertions in the comments posted.
It’s true you don’t HAVE to remove the wheel to change the oil on a Saturn S-series engine, but that was an option for those who didn’t have a way to pick up a car. If the car is in a garage where they will automatically lift it, sure, you can change the filter from below just like seemingly any other car, but it’s still a bit wedged in on the back, unlike my predecessor Mitsubishi “Plymouth Colt” where the filter was easily accessible on the front.
The plus side of all the S-series Saturns is that they were more advanced than earlier higher-pollution engines, but not so advanced that a hundred “bells and whistles” were hanging off of them like most modern engines have, jam-packed into the engine compartment. And as I noted earlier, EVERY make of car engine more modern than, say, 1970 has both something brilliant and something obscenity-producing.
Those polymer panels are excellent. I don’t know why current vehicles are not built the same way.
Oh actually I do.
They want them to rust and burn gasoline.
Buy a Corvette.
Not the same. Plastic VS fiberglass.
The other thing I remember about these is that when you bought one, you were part of an exclusive Saturn Owners Club that had get togethers both locally and nationally.
I thought it was a neat way to promote the brand.
GM has the Heritage museum where they store GM vehicles and display them for tours. Last time I went to it, there were no Saturns or Hummers. This car would be a great addition
The collection is so big they have to rotate cars through it, I understand they were planning to move it to a bigger location.
There’s quite a few dead American companies in corporate graveyards with the same unanswered question. Who killed you? Bad corporate management or a union struggle.I was an OTR driver for Ryder Logistics and they had the contract for Saturn.I was on the Toyota account so we didn’t make have of what those Saturn drivers made. Life was good for those drivers because they were union jobs. Then one day it was all over. They ran out of Spring Hill TN and it hit those drivers hard.l was offered a job on that account if I was willing to relocate but I never got the chance and I never really found out what happened neither from Ryder or Saturn. So l stay on the Toyota account for another 17yrs. Dave maybe you can answer some lingering questions for me. Thanks
FYI, the Spring Hill plant never closed, its still active and it’s GM’s largest car plant in North America.
I still have my 1999 SC2 5speed, 165,000 miles, and it looks and runs great…the only problem is, with all the salt they like to use on the midwest roads, the suspension mount points have rotted through. I’ve used 1/4″ angle iron to create new mount points, but so much of the underside has gone soft that the spots where I welded that on are starting to go, as well…anyone need a clean body??
Ralph the plant is still there but the Saturn isn’t. It’s long buried in one of those corporate graveyards.
That Saturn plant was vacant for quite awhile allowing for maintenance and ground keeping until GM decided what to do with it.
Three months later and it’s still for sale for the exact same price?
https://barnfinds.com/634-mile-time-capsule-1991-saturn-sc/
LOL! I totally forgot about this previous post. Kind of like the car – forgettable.
Hard to believe a modern mini starter would be hard to replace on ANY car.
Not crazy about the updated wipers fitted here with the big “raised bump” in the middle.
With rustproof body panels, why are almost all Saturns now gone, but old mustangs, etc. are not? – both are unibody.
“With rustproof body panels, why are almost all Saturns now gone, but old mustangs, etc. are not? – both are unibody.”
Because owners baby their Mustangs/Corvettes/Camaros/Firebirds, but Saturns were daily drivers driven until they dropped.