NEW YORK — General Motors Corp. has a tentative deal to sell its Saturn brand to former race car driver and dealership group owner Roger Penske, both companies said Friday.
Penske has signed a memorandum of understanding that would give his dealership chain, Penske Automotive Group, Saturn’s 350 dealerships, the companies said. Penske told reporters that he expects to offer all the dealers new franchise agreements and will retain all 13,000 Saturn employees for the immediate term.
Neither Penske nor GM would say how much Penske is paying for the brand. Penske said he expects the deal to close in the third quarter.
Penske Automotive Group also distributes Daimler AG’s Smart subcompacts in the U.S., but Smart has its own dealership network and Saturn dealers will continue to exclusively distribute Saturn vehicles, Penske said.
Initially, GM will continue to make cars for Saturn for two years, Penske said. But he also said he is in talks with manufacturers around the world about building Saturn cars in the future.
“We will be we’ll be selling as many GM cars — a many GM-produced cars — under the Saturn brand as possible,” Penske said.
I’ve never owned a Saturn but my mom has an Ion that she likes much better than the Ford Taurus she traded on it. And I thought the Vue was cool when it came out, but was close to paying off my Intrepid and didn’t want to get into another car payment.
If they’re going to survive and won’t be part of Government Motors, then I might have to add them to my new car short list which currently includes only Nissan and Ford.
I have had Saturns as rental cars and all have been good except one model (I cannot remember what) that had the dash cluster (speedometer etc.) in the center of the dash (between the driver/passenger seats) instead of in front of the driver. It made sense and you could see it well when driving, but it was just weird.
That’s the Ion, and yeah, it’s weird.
But my 82-year-old mother doesn’t seem to have a problem with it 🙂 And I guess that’s what counts.