Private Saturn Ceremony: General Motors Chairman Roger...
From Times Staff and Wire Reports
Private Saturn Ceremony: General Motors Chairman Roger B. Smith is scheduled today to drive the first production car off the $1.9-billion Saturn assembly line in Spring Hill, Tenn., but there will be no reporters and no politicians around, and only company photographers will record it. Bruce MacDonald, Saturn’s vice president for communications, claimed that employees wanted a private ceremony alone with Smith, who retires as chairman on Tuesday. Industry analyst Joseph Phillippi of Shearson Lehman Bros. Inc. said keeping the ceremony private might also be an effort by GM to lower expectations about the new nameplate.
