SATURN : Detroit Fights Back

The Saturn cars--General Motors’ $3.5-billion gamble to stall Asian car sales and, conceivably, stay some fatal crumbling of the domestic auto industry--advanced into the front line of Southern California this week.

A brief but intense test drive forms a solid premise: That Saturn’s three stars--two shovel-fronted sedans priced from $7,995 and a handsome if generic sports coupe for $11,775--will play well.

They will win new owners from that unhappy lot currently limping and rattling along in base Chevrolet Cavaliers, leftover Oldsmobile Omegas and other little domestic lumps that sacrificed performance and handling for the presumed economies of low price and high gas mileage.

They will repatriate those who once truly wanted to Buy American but defected to Toyota, Honda, Mitsubishi and Nissan because Detroit knew nothing about building spirited and interesting compacts.

On price alone--$1,500 less than the Honda Civic DX and a full $2,000 below Toyota Corolla DLX--Saturn is a three-car price war.

They will certainly besot anyone who never expected to find such pleasantries as a multivalve engine and speed-sensitive steering and certainly not 120-m.p.h. performance from a car costing $10,000.

Saturn--by the amount of technology (vertical body surfaces of ding-resistant polymer) squeezed into budget surroundings--clearly is the finest small car built by the American automobile industry since the 1933 Chevy Roadster.

It is very good.

But the best of Spring Hill is only as good as the cars the competition is shipping from Tokyo, Yokohama and Toyota City.

It is not better than the opposition.

And if the durability of Saturn should fail, if recalls occur, if its good-neighbor approach to customer assistance turns into a nightmare on Elm Street, Saturn will be quickly consigned to that Vehicle Valhalla wherein rest the smoldering remains of Edsel, Corvair and the Cadillac Cimarron.

Such negativism, however, was far from the red, white and blue buoyancy that bounced from the cover of Time magazine and network newscasts this week as Saturn rolled into California dealerships.

The debut was more of a dribble.

Despite dozens of early orders, said general manager Mike Smith, just seven of the compact cars went to Saturn of Santa Ana. Six vehicles were delivered to Saturn of El Cajon. Only 11 of 45 cars ordered arrived at Saturn of the Valley in Sepulveda. Single-digit deliveries to California’s five other Saturn dealers were the norm.

The trickle, explained a spokesman, was deliberate. Saturn’s production line in Spring Hill, Tenn., was slowed to squash petty eleventh-hour glitches with the cars. Better that vehicles be delayed, he said, than crucial first customers be dismayed.

“It is just a matter of careful quality control,” said Richard (Skip) LeFeuve, president of Saturn Corp. “The whole idea here was to begin to produce so that we could say: ‘Look, the car’s out there. You can go see it. You can go drive it and get some idea of what you want.’

“You know, it’s interesting. Everybody wants to talk quantity. All we want to do is talk quality. And if quality comes along, quantity comes with it.”

LeFeuve noted that for too long, automobile purchasers have functioned on a single basis: Buyer beware. With Saturn, he said, there is a fresh and total commitment: Customer rest assured.

And if all that sounds like the death of the stereotypical car salesman, he continued, consider this: There are assembly line teams at Saturn that want to adopt dealerships “so that they can go visit . . . and if a problem comes up, the dealership can call direct to the team.”

Such tradition-smashing comes easily at Saturn, where the management philosophy leads to a production psychology that is best described as Hari Krishna meets Alvin Toffler.

There is no hierarchy at the Saturn plant, only one team of 2,800 partners. Workers call their president Skip and everybody wears Saturn polo shirts to work. From LeFeuve to first gofer, all employees are salaried. Group hugging is encouraged more than coffee breaks and further tensions can be worked out on a Delta Force obstacle course. Remaining pressures may be eased through a “Decision Day” off, with pay, to contemplate the good, the bad and the profitable of life on Saturn.

During this opening week in Southern California, the new Saturn division of General Motors (the first family addition since Chevrolet was born in 1918) continued to run over sacred cows:

It introduced a line where there are no emblems, no designations separating base models from the top of the line. Call it inconspicuous consumption. “I don’t know if we have destroyed a class system,” LeFeuve said. “But we’ve sure taken a heck of a swat at it.”

Despite an official press rollout day in Tennessee, there were no meetings on either coast to introduce the Saturn line to local media. No local press drives were volunteered. Not even in California where, division officials agree, Saturn faces its toughest corps--a die-hard market where imports comprise 50% (compared to 28% nationally) of new car purchases.

“We just kind of took things as they were naturally happening and that included media when the opportunity came along,” LeFeuve added.

Our opportunity came along at a reunion of GM retirees who gathered on the new, hot and almost empty asphalt at Saturn of El Cajon for a first look at what their old firm has been up to.

Saturn’s initial offering--but programmed to grow into the full inventory of wagons and convertibles--starts with the SL/SL1 sports sedan at a base price of $7,995. The four-cylinder, single cam 1.9-liter engine develops 85 horsepower. The entry-level SL is equipped with manual transmission only and the SL1 is stickered at $8,595.

Next up is the SL2, which is much better trimmed (plastic wheel covers replaced by cast alloy wheels) and comes with the 16-valve, twin-cam engine and 123 horsepower.

Then there’s the obligatory SC sports coupe ($11,775) that has a slinkier look but mechanicals identical to the SL2.

Saturn expects sales to be an even, three-way split. But if there is any customer leaning, said a representative, it should be toward the SL2 sports sedan. So we borrowed a blue one.

In one major respect, Saturn is far from being a GM car.

It was conceived eight years ago with designers doodling on a clean legal pad. The engine and transmission and chassis are new and uniquely Saturn. Unlike the flagrant parts-swapping of Chevrolet, Pontiac and Oldsmobile, no Saturn moldings, panels, suspension setups or internal accessories are cloned from existing GM vehicles.

Yet Saturn, unmistakably, is a GM car.

The front of the sedan slopes, reaches and sniffs, similar to the nose of the Pontiac Firebird. The rear window is Oldsmobile Cutlass. And is this sports coupe silhouette a Beretta we see before us? Or a Geo Storm?

So the overall look is typically Detroit and that’s about as predictable and as daring as the Erie Canal.

The interior is pleasant, convenient, sensible and very well organized. In fact, it succeeds in all of the basics that GM’s small cars have lacked since the Vega.

Seat backs are better curved for upper body comfort and lower back bracing. The steering wheel is set further forward and is much better positioned for the longer of reach. Both placements are a direct contradiction of GM’s design norms.

Somebody did a lot of sitting and thinking and real driving in this quite spacious cabin. Consequently, oft-used radio controls are mounted high on the console. Lesser-used heating and climate controls are set lower. The east-west spokes of the three-pronged steering wheel curve downward so the analog dials receive maximum visibility.

The turn signal stalk makes a click, not a crack. Release catches for the trunk and gas cap are on the floor, down and to the left, exactly where they belong. If that sounds reminiscent of the ideal Japanese car, then so be it.

But Saturn does manage to go just one better.

Anyone who has used a motorized shoulder belt system knows one psychological vagary: When the belt slides into place, drivers and passengers will almost always forget to use the double security of the lap belt.

On Saturn, the shoulder belts slip snug. There is a five-second delay. Then a soft chime reminds occupants to buckle the lap strap and the reminder is hard to ignore.

Then Saturn falls back a notch.

An anti-lock brake system is an $895 option and air bags, said a Saturn representative, will not be on the cars until 1994.

Saturn’s mistake, he admitted. But air bags weren’t an enormous consideration when the car was first designed. Now it’s too late to work some simple, quick, inexpensive retrofit.

The final cleverness of Saturn, however, is with the performance of the SL2. And not with what it can do but with what it is unable to do.

It doesn’t do 160 m.p.h. It doesn’t accelerate from zero to 60 in a sniff. It cannot be slung furiously around corners without ends slipping and protesting.

Because, said president LeFeuve, the car was built for the Indiana family and not the Indianapolis hopeful.

“We’re almost paranoid about the Saturn consumer, the (product research) sessions we had with them and trying to give them exactly what they wanted,” he explained. “This way, your engine can be simpler. That gives you higher reliability. And obviously, we’re talking (lower) cost.”

Yet there is nothing dull about the handling and performance flexibility of Saturn.

Mid-range acceleration on the freeways isn’t an ear-flattener--but you won’t be left straining at the ramp or getting into embarrassing passing situations.

Don’t expect to be first away from every stoplight--but you will be ahead of anyone in a pickup, van, most sport utilities and any Chevy Corsica.

Do expect a nimbleness of steering and solid braking. The suspension is stiff enough to suggest a great predictability of handling.

And when that suspension is being tested, when the car is hunkering on a line and doing something naughtier than normal, the Saturn is thoroughly well-behaved.

Early trade magazine critiques of Saturn have noted much wind noise around doors and windows. We heard nothing, and that was one result of all that last-minute glitch-fixing at Spring Hill.

Another carp concerned the buzziness of the Saturn engine, particularly when the car was being driven hard. We certainly cringed before that. Worse, the noise was coming from up front, where tappets and chains and metallic things slap and rattle. Not from the rear, where a good exhaust engineer might be able to convert it into some performance sound.

In Detroit’s frantic pursuit of automotive excellence as pioneered by Japanese cars, one objective has remained particularly elusive. Harmony. Oneness. That sense that a car was designed by consensus until all mechanical functions were in balance, all control pressures were equal and a driver’s performance became relatively effortless.

The Ford Escort, after several decades, was the first domestic car to make that mystique.

Saturn is second and from an assembly line geared to improve as it goes. So the best of Saturn may be yet to come.

1991 SATURN SL2 COST: Base: $10,295. As tested. $12,500 (options include power sun roof, cruise control, air conditioning, power doors, windows and mirrors.) TYPE: Front-wheel drive, four-door sports sedan. ENGINE: Four-cylinder, 16-valve, double overhead cams and 1.9 liters developing 123 horsepower. PERFORMANCE: 0-60, as tested, 9.8 seconds. Top speed, estimated, 122 m.p.h. Fuel economy, estimated, 37 m.p.g. highway, 27 m.p.g. city. CURB WEIGHT: 2,408 pounds. THE GOOD: Higher technology with low cost. Spirited performance with harmony of handling. Best small car made by domestic industry. Scores a draw with imported competition. THE BAD: Good enough, but not better than. Conservative styling when timing right for adventure. No air bags. THE UGLY: Not visible.