When was the last time you saw a Saturn? I mean, a real Saturn, not a badge-engineered Opel as the company pumped out toward the end of their lifespan. This 1993 Saturn SL2 is a real one, a first-generation car, and the seller has it posted here on craigslist in Patchogue, New York, on Long Island, and the seller is asking just $1,495! Here is the original listing, and thanks to Mitchell G. for the tip!
The same day that GM Chairman, Roger Smith, retired, the first Saturn rolled off the assembly line at the dedicated Saturn factory in Spring Hill, Tennessee, on July 30, 1990. By 1993, the cars were entrenched in American car-buying/selling lore, and it looked like there was no stopping this marketing powerhouse. Not to mention, they were damn good cars, too.
The SL was the base model, followed by the SL1, both with black bumpers, but then came the SL2, the one that we all wanted. It had the slick DOHC engine and body-colored bumpers. In this era, this was a nice-looking car, and it still is today. Fancy aluminum wheels? What more do you want in a somewhat inexpensive, door ding-proof car? And they were made in America, no less. I had a 2002 (third-gen) Saturn SL1, a cheapo, although it had body-colored bumpers by that time, and AC, power windows and power locks, etc. It also had a 5-speed manual.
This car with a 5-speed manual would be a legend at almost any vintage car event – at least in the “modern era” corral. Although 1993 is 32 years ago now, if you can wrap your head around that tidbit. 32 years, that’s older than a decent percentage of Barn Finds readers. I was in college at the time, driving a 1991 Dodge Spirit, but why didn’t I get a Saturn SL2 with a 5-speed instead? Dumb. The first-generation S-series was made from 1990 for model year 1991, through 1995 in SL (sedan), SC (coupe), and SW (wagon) body styles. There were a few different things about Saturns, as you know, not the least of which was the polymer body panels. I think that an SW2 (wagon) with a 5-speed would have a crowd around it any time you stopped for gas or groceries.
You could still get dents from hail and other things on the hood, roof, and trunk lid, but no more door dings, and that was very cool. I can’t believe they don’t still do this today. The no-haggle dealer experience was another interesting aspect. Speaking of interesting, this car has the top engine in this era, a 1.9-liter DOHC inline-four with 123 horsepower. Backed by an automatic sending power to the front wheels, this example is likely still fun to drive, but I loved my rubberband-like 5-speed with a shift handle longer than a summer day in Alaska. The seller says this car has just 38,000 miles, and the odometer just quit working (oh oh). There are no engine photos, sadly. For $1,495, is this one worth a gamble sight-unseen?
These are / were great cars. 1993 We had just gotten married and were in the market for a good car. A base model Saturn SL in a color called Blue Black ( if memory serves me correctly) was on our radar. We were on a tight budget, and no matter what way we figured it we couldn’t swing it. A year later our local Ford dealer had a clearance deal on ’94 Escorts brand new. And we couldnt pass it up. I was very impressed with the Saturn. Knew an insurance adjuster that out over 200K very trouble free miles on his. Good car. This one looks good. Thanks once again for the good memories Scotty.
Yours must have been one of the few that didn’t burn oil, ’cause I remember seeing many of them spewing blue clouds.
Does anyone remember the “No Haggling” sales setup they had?
I do, appealed to younger buyers.. proved popular enough idea to my friend, who bought one for the family. Was a reliable, car too.
I remember in the beginning there was no mention that Saturn was part of GM. Management didn’t want to taint the launch and turn potential buyers away.
Ironic because the Saturn was 100% GM: the money to fund and build them, the engineers, the body and interior designers, the workers…Only a handful were pulled from Spring Hill and around 95, the UAW pressured GM to install laid off UAW members on the line.
I worked at the Spring Hill Tenn plant for 23 yrs.Best job ever and people cared about the cars they built
Sigh,,,I suppose if I am going to frequent the site, stuff like this is bound to come along, especially if the author has anything to say about it. I had this exact car, only green. I had the SL2, the twin cam, which I thought was an exceptional motor, but hard to work on. The car had 215K when I got it for $500. I put at least another 20K on it until the odometer broke, and a couple months after that. Lot of trips up to the Nort’ woods with that car. Still getting 30+, and a few problems. Coil pack shorted out, serpentine belt tensioner impossible, starter, loooooong extensions, and the freakin’ oil filter required removal of right front tire. The guillotine seat belt was a bit troublesome( removed here) I sold the car for $450, so talk about cost free driving, almost. Saturn was supposed to be this heartwarming affair, before Subaru and the love schtick, “we care about our customers”, and yearly gatherings, a plaque, I think, that honored the building of their car and really was a different deal, compared to those cold hearted others, and best of all, for some, it was made in right here. I read, ’93 was actually the peak for Saturn, as they began losing money in ’94, and operated in the red from ’99 until the end. By 2000, they were losing $3000 on every car made. I believe it was the ION that was the poster child for recalls. My SIL had a VUE 4×4, their best selling model, and was very happy with it. Ton of miles. Saturn was another of those last chance for US to compete with the imports, and having owned a Saturn, and my daughter had a SC1 she loved, I can’t understand why a car like this failed. I guess I never will.
BTW, GM continued to use the plant in Tenn. to make the Traverse, but that was moved to Michigan. The plant sits idle. Anyone remember the Simpsons episode, Oh brother, where art thou? In it, Homers half brother, Herb( Danny Divito) owns a car company in Detroit. They called it Powell, no relation, I don’t think but you can figure it out. Anyway, the plant goes bust when Homer tries to design his own car, ,,and here’s the kicker,,,in the closing scene, cranes are taking down the “Powell Motors” sign, and replacing it with “Kumatsu Motors” ( close spelling). A comical twist on an actually very dire situation.
So much that is incorrect in that posting. Not the least of which is that the manufacturing plant in Spring Hill, TN is not idle. It currently produces the Cadillac XT5, Cadillac Vistiq, Cadillac Lyric, and the Acura ZDX for GM’s joint program with Honda. It’s one of the most advanced and versatile plants in GM’s manufacturing stable, and has been since its Saturn days. So much incorrect in that posting…
Another GM failure for all the wrong reasons……
Saturn’s were very good auto’s. Pretty much like a Honda&Toyota. Very little problems.
What does GM do…. they started to go “cheap” with the Saturn brand. Using part bind items. GM started to share components with it’s other auto brands.
They closed because they couldn’t make a profit. Remember the ads that said they were “A different Kind of car company”? They had a company policy where they had to listen to the hourly assembly floor techs for input on efficiency, worker satisfaction, etc. Anyone that wanted could join an advisory committee for a certain amount of time to recommend “solutions”. Problem was nobody wanted to go back to assembly.
Saturn was very profitable until jealous GM accountants saddled it with onerous corporate expenses. In other words, Saturn has to contribute to fund massive overhead.
I bought one in 1993 SL2 new, auto a/c antilock brakes. Good car excellent fuel mileage, no problems mechanically. Liked the free car wash with every service. Sold after 60,000 in1997.
where did they all go? the junk yard that’s where
Right Hairyolds. They all went to the junkyard and then to the crusher after the engines started to burn oil. My neighbor had 2 1998 4 doors and 20 years later both burned oil and the donated them. They probably went to the crushed as one of them burned 1 quart of oil a week!!
Had a Saturn new. First it was rear ended by an uninsured driver. I was at a stop light in the left turn lane. Idiot claimed he did not see me. Fixed the car. Then, driving in the rain at a road construction site in South Carolina, my Saturn slipped off the side of the lane and thunked down onto the removed lane to my right. Slowly tried to drive up onto my lane when my Saturn spun out and slid into the median. It continued its sideways slide through numerous pine trees without hitting one. Our new daughter was shouting “weeeeee!!!”. Finally quietly tapped the passenger door on a pine tree trunk. Got out, saw the dented door, backed away, and the door popped back out. Drove back on the interstate and finally caught up with the Grandparents car ahead. Stopped at the next exit and removed the pine branches. No damage to the car. The wet soil and grass of the median acted as a slide and prevented a roll over.
I had an SL1 5 speed I commuted with 130 miles a day round trip. It was scary gutless but I had to double and even triple check the fuel mileage. The first couple of weeks I got 44 mpg. Then I did a very basic “tuneup” that included a new fuel filter and viola! It would actually stagger out of it’s own way and rev freely. I still had to turn off the AC to pull out into traffic with any confidence but the fuel mileage dropped to a measly 40 mpg, lol! It never shifted well no matter what I did with it, including replacing the clutch. But it got me a low fuel bill for years until I relocated closer to work and sold the car. Once in a while I still see one on the roadways, but it’s a rare sighting. I don’t miss the car at all.
Over the years I had 3 Saturns. 2 SW2 wagons and a SC2 coupe. All of them were great cars, 2 of them (the wagons) got very close to 300k. Working on them was like playing with Legos, simple and satisfying. Parts were cheap and plentiful. For a long time, the junkyards were full of them, making it very easy on me. Our 98 wagon we kept 21 years and it never failed a safety inspection.
Scotty: you forgot to mention the space frame that those polymer panels hang from. That alone makes it a special interest type of car. That and the background story of it’s inception, the significance of it’s place in GM and automotive history [First time a new car company went from the ground up to production since Kaiser Frazer, even though Saturn was 100% GM]. I would say it would make a great entrant at a car show.
I went to visit my older brother in Salt Lake and he picked me up in a 95 SL1 5M, same color as the one in the story. All the way from the airport, he kept apologizing about how basic the car was…
Well, he probably was unaware that that’s the sort of car that goes right up my flue. It triggered something and when I got back to LA, within two days I had purchased my own 95 SL1 5M in that beautiful blue green metallic they offered.
116,000 miles on it then. And still tight and running well. I paid for it with a credit card. The most insane thing I have ever done with one.
I loved it and still love it but after a few years I gave it to my little brother. It was way too low to the ground and I was having hip problems.
He still has it. Last summer we put down HD sound deadener and new carpet. Just a couple of weeks ago he put nearly $4000 into a new paint job for it, this time a great looking red and it looks like new. Well over 200,000 miles on it now.
That “basic” Saturn my brother kept apologizing for had a ripple effect over decades now. I bought a new 2005 ION because the SL1 was so solid at over 100,000 miles and still have it.
It’s a “true” Saturn, BTW, space frame, polymer panels, built in Spring Hill under the original Saturn contract [gone after 12-2004. UAW and “Spring Hill Manufacturing” starting in 01-2005. Mine was built in November 2004].
This may start a war, but it’s the better of the two cars in many respects. But hear me out: it has better entry and exit, great head room, better driving position, not as low to the ground, better ride, it’s quieter, smaller turning circle, the 2.2 Ecotec had become a good engine by 2005 after the timing chain problems were finally sorted and it didn’t suck oil like the S Series did. [The S Series had timing chain problems as well].
However: GM had no clue what drove the Saturn buyer and instead of building on what the S Series had built, went with weird because that’s what they thought of the Saturn customer. Cyclops eye instrument cluster [it works just fine, but, if you have to explain a feature or make a case for it, you’ve missed the mark], bizarre “Rings Of Saturn” themes and strange textures in the interior, ]even the initial dome light cover was shaped like an alien head], bottom of the barrel plastics…..and strange styling. I have yet to discover who the head designer was. No one will claim the ION exterior styling.
Plus GM replaced that fun to drive 5 speed with a jumpy, noisy Getrag or some parts bin tranny. I wound up choosing the automatic because it was so nasty to use….that would have been Hell in LA traffic.
{Thankfully that POS vTi [CVT 100% early failure rate] collaboration GM had created with FIAT was gone by that time [and I wasn’t buying the Quad Coupe which came with it]. All billed to Saturn BTW and was a major factor in destroying Saturn’s reputation}
That’s what GM they thought of their Saturn buyer. Like they did their Corvair/Nova/Vega/ Chevette customer: only the lunatic fringe would buy one of those small cars.
And most critical: GM destroyed the personality that the S Series cars had with the ION. Eventually I uncovered it’s qualities and fell in love with it and just serviced it to get another 20 years out of it. Now I love the styling, the ride, the weirdness [it doesn’t look out of place with the tortured sheet metal of what’s offered today], the Cyclops gauge cluster. But it’s not that SL1…
I was ambivalent about it, mostly because my first brand new car was destroyed in an early morning rear ender and I resented having to replace it. It had just been paid off. Eventually I grew to love the styling, the ride, the weirdness, the Cyclops gauge cluster. It has it’s own personality. But it’s not that SL1…
In the same way Ford did the same thing with it’s ovoid Taurus: no clue why the first two series were successful, so they went strange, tried to hard to be different and lost the sales lead they had.
So this is what my brother started.
I bought a 3 year old 2004 Saturn Vue AWD V6. It was originally a lease vehicle turned in after 3 years. Had 30,000 miles on it. It was also loaded with every option. Black (of course) with a gray interior. Found out after I moved to Vegas that it had the Honda engine in it which apparently was a very desirable thing.
It ran well and served me well up to 2018, except near the end things stopped working. The CD player jammed with a CD in it I couldn’t get out. The a/c stopped working (in Vegas!) The power doorlocks got funky and a bunch of little annoying things were going on. My 3rd husband took it one night and totalled it on a parked car. Drove it home but it wouldn’t go over 20 mph. Most of the damage was the suspension. Fourteen year old car and insurance still gave me $4000 for it.
A work friend went to buy a new Saturn when they had just come on the market and when he got the final price he said, “Throw in the floor mats and it’s a deal,” but the sales lady said she couldn’t do that so he walked out. Definitely a different way to buy a car back then.
I had this same car with the 5-speed. Bought it off the showroom floor with 1200 miles on it. They said it was returned because the first buyer changed their mind about the color. When I got it home I learned the truth. It had more squeaks and rattles than most cars with 90,000 miles. Otherwise it wasn’t a bad car. It was reliable and easy to drive, although the ride as extremely stiff. Overall, not my favorite car. I immediately missed the ’85 Celica that I had traded in. Live and learn…
I might buy this car. I had a station wagon for the same make. I sold it to soon and miss it.
Reliste with $155 markup: https://longisland.craigslist.org/cto/d/blue-point-1993-saturn-sl2-cylinder-gas/7874859661.html
My wife and I bought a new1994 SL2. It was loaded with all the toys like an electronically operated automatic, leather and a sunroof. We bought the Saturn because we were getting tired shifting our manual transmission toad that we had to use 4 wheels on the ground behind our motorhome. The Saturn didn’t need a lube pump for the automatic transmission which voided manufacturers warranties. We loved our Saturn and would probably have kept it a long time if General Motors wouldn’t have dropped the brand.
Yesterday I found myself driving behind a Vue. I couldn’t figure out what it was until I stared at the red logo on the back and realized that it had been a few years since I saw a Saturn on the road.
@Paolo
Good thing you weren’t behind mine when it was on the road. I took all the Saturn emblems off and replaced them with Cadillac crests. Even added some and did the interior, too.
Just something fun to do and confuse the other motorists.
My mechanic called it a Satillac.
There you go subverting the dominant paradigm, again.
Bought a new SW2 in 2000. Nice driver’s car with good handling. The automatic blew my mind one time when we were driving on the Blue Ridge Parkway which has some long downgrades on the northern end. My “schtik” was to tap the brakes and manually downshift to keep from running away well in excess of the posted speed. After having done this a few times, I topped a grade and prepared to downshift but when I tapped the brake, THAT SUCKER DOWNSHIFTED FOR ME!
With the automatic, the Twin Cam didn’t deliver the economy of the SOHC mill. It delivered 32.7 MPG overall for the 120,916 miles over thirteen years. Traded it for another innocuous driver’s car, a Focus SE with the Getrag DC gearbox. It, too, learns one’s driving habits and has been a nice ride, now with a mere 53K miles at 34.7 MPG. The Focus is a favorite in Euro road ralleying too, some ever sporting 4WD.
Mom had a ’93 just like this, but in gold. We gave it to a friend who doubled the mileage on it, to over 200k miles before rust in the space frame under the plastic body panels sent it to the crusher.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t remember there being an SL model, just an SL1 and SL2. Mom’s was an SL1, with the fixed headlights like this one has, the SL2 got hideaway headlights, IIRC.
The “SL” models—SL, SL1, and SL2–were the sedans. The SL and SL1 were equipped with a SOHC engine and 14” wheels, whereas the SL2 models came with the DOHC engine and 15” wheels (among other upgrades). All sedans had fixed headlights.
The “SC” models—SC1 and SC2—were the coupes. The SC1 was the SOHC engine, 14” wheels, and fixed headlights. The SC2 came with the DOHC engine, 15” wheels, and the pop-up headlights (first generation models).
And, SW1 and SW2 comprised the wagon models.
My niece had one, before they started importing the Opels. She lives in rural Vermont, and drove the whee out of it, commuting to work. Got a better job, and traded it in on an Audi A4, and said the Audi was the biggest automotive mistake she ever made.
The whole space frame concept was first applied to the Fiero, IIRC, then ported over to Saturn for their cars when the Fiero died in the marketplace due to GM’s mismanagement. Ditto for the Saturn, as GM didn’t really know how to sell to Asian import buyers and the Saturn experience didn’t really teach them what they needed to know to survive the Asian onslaught.
GM is like many old line companies. They have been in business so long, they think they know all there is to know about building products and making money, until a new competitor or new technology comes along to change everything, making all of their old methods obsolete! Faced with this new reality, they either adapt, or die trying. The jury is still out on GM, but given GM’s huge size and institutional inertia, I am not hopeful. GM, despite its advantages, still acts like the behemoth it once was, when it owned over half of the North American car market, not the 20% or so it currently owns. Failure to recognize the new realities will doom GM to failure, no matter what the executives try to do to stem the tide.
Failure IS an option. Just ask PanAm, TWA, Continental, Eastern and Northeast Airlines, to name a few, when deregulation upended the airlines comfortable market place! Not even an astronaut and rocket scientist could save Eastern from bankruptcy!
Don’t forget Kodak.
I won’t! LOL!
I had a single cammer,,checked the oil one day and it looked more like coffee than black gold! After repairing the head & head gasket my mlieage was measured in miles per quart! They said the twin cam engines were the ones to have.
I loved the two door version of the SL2 Saturn.
Nice looking car. I remember when the Saturn car was first intro’d. I thought I was looking at an imitation Toyota Corolla, a good looking imitation, but an imitation all the same. At the time I didn’t take Saturn very seriously. I probably could have driven one and enjoyed it.