Saturn cars will be no more...

Photo Creative Commons License by Saturn

The Washington Post today carried the story of the demise of the Saturn, a "different kind of car company" owned and made by GM. As a result, more than 350 dealerships are slated to shut down, and 13,000 jobs are threatened.

GM, now largely owned by the federal government, has been trying to shed several product lines, including Hummer and Opel, besides Saturn. They thought they had a deal with Penske (of Indy Racing Car fame), but that deal fell through simply because Penske could not find a car manufacturer here or in Europe to build the cars.

The first Saturn off the line (pictured above) was just 24 years ago, and in 1993 they rolled #500,000 off the line. I couldn't find a current estimate of how many Saturn's have been made.

My mother drove a Saturn. It fascinated me because it had three doors, not immediately apparent from the outside. When the driver's door was opened, a second door (without an outside handle) could be opened allowing access to the backseat, and it had no rigid column between the front and rear doors.

I'm sorry to see Saturn go, but at least it wasn't an Edsel.