Saturn Spins Into Showrooms : Autos: El Cajon dealer launches low-key campaign as General Motors pins hopes on car designed to compete against Japanese imports.

There seemed to be more Saturn billboards alongside roads in San Diego County than actual Saturn cars this past week when General Motors introduced the new automobile line that represents GM’s boldest attempt yet to produce an automobile that can match Japanese quality, design and affordability.

Saturn of El Cajon, now the county’s only Saturn dealer, had sold or taken deposits on eight of the 10 cars on its lot by Thursday night, the dealership’s first day of business. By Sunday, the dealership had sold or taken orders on 25 cars.

The shortage of new cars was obvious at each of Saturn’s 29 dealers in 10 states around the country, Saturn officials said, as demand for the cars far outstripped supply.

Individual Saturn dealerships typically had only seven to 15 cars on hand last week. But more cars are on the way from Saturn’s new plant in Spring Hill, Tenn., where production was slowed in recent weeks by workers who wanted to ensure that they were producing trouble-free automobiles.

“We have a lot of cars in the float, in the pipeline,” said Donald W. Hudler, Saturn’s corporate vice president for sales and marketing. “It’s a big job to bring up a plant as complex as ours.”

The shortage did not phase Bob Chappelle, Saturn of El Cajon’s director of sales and training. “I’d rather have few cars but make sure they’re good cars,” he said of Saturn’s decision to slow production and concentrate on quality control. Saturn of El Cajon expects to receive 66 more cars in mid-November, Chappelle said.

The Saturn, which carries a base price of $7,995, is designed to compete against Japanese imports that are grabbing an ever-increasing percentage of the U.S. market. The cars were designed by GM but, internally, they bear little resemblance to other GM products.

Consumers who viewed cars on display at Saturn of El Cajon on Thursday said they were impressed by Saturn’s attention to detail. Most customers knew that Saturn was a GM creation, but most also noted that the dealership was unlike any GM dealership that they’d previously visited.

By noon Thursday, Chappelle’s staff had taken deposits on a pair of Saturns. “One is a retired lady who isn’t trading anything in, the other is a middle-aged couple who had a Toyota that was in an accident,” Chappelle said.

And, shortly after 2 p.m., Willie and Helen Anderson grabbed the El Cajon dealership’s third car. Anderson, who has been buying American since acquiring a used Chevrolet in 1936, hopes that Saturn “will get quality back to where it was in the ‘40s. . . . I think (this country) is finally moving back in the right direction.”

Most of the dealership’s sales were to customers who matched Saturn’s customer profile--a younger driver who is now driving a Japanese import. But, on Thursday, most buyers and shoppers were decidely older.

George Castillo, a sales representative for the San Diego Alarm Co., happened upon the Saturn dealership near Parkway Plaza in El Cajon on Thursday afternoon. Castillo entered the Saturn showroom with the hope of selling an alarm system to the company. “I thought it was some new Japanese company,” Castillo said. “I didn’t really know what it was.”

Although Castillo isn’t in the market for a new car, he was impressed by the new Saturns--and by the low-key sales approach at the dealership. “That looks like a lot of car for $12,000,” said Castillo, who was looking at a deluxe model. Castillo left with a Saturn brochure for a friend who is shopping for a new car.

Chappelle said Saturn has worked hard to develop the low-key approach that is evident in the showroom. The biggest difference between Saturn’s showroom and outlets for GM’s sister lines such as Chevrolet, Buick and Oldsmobile, is that the sales force is paid salaries and bonuses rather than commissions.

“This is a different kind of an automobile, and it’s sold in a different way,” Chappelle said. “What we have as our No. 1 goal is customer satisfaction, which is hard to create when you’re paying commissions.”

As part of that approach, Saturn cars sell for their sticker price, Chappelle said, and there are no added costs such as dealer preparation or hidden charges. The dealerships are called “retail facilities.” Saturn salespeople, and the 2,800 people who build Saturns in Tennessee, are called “Saturn partners.”

There are no “closing rooms,” where salespeople sequester clients for the final assault. Instead, Saturn partners wearing Saturn polo shirts escort potential customers to desks that fill the showroom floor. “We don’t care if the customer next door hears what they’re saying,” one Saturn salesman said.

Similarly, the dealership’s exterior lacks the gimmicks that adorn traditional dealerships. There are no balloons, flags or “sale” signs that most dealers paint on their showroom windows.

Chappelle, who has been in car sales 16 years, credited Saturn with attempting to craft a new and better way to sell cars. “I tried to do something like this (at a car dealership in Oregon),” Chappelle said. “But it was difficult because the manufacturer was not geared toward doing it.”

Customers at Saturn of El Cajon on Thursday were interviewed by a team from Saturn’s Tennessee plant that will produce a “first-day” video that will capture the car’s debut for Saturn team members in Tennessee, video producer Charley Ash said.

The crew visited Saturn of El Cajon because it is just miles from where Toyota and Datsun (now Nissan) opened their first U.S. dealerships, Ash said. “We want to take on the imports on their own turf,” Ash said.

The video crew spent part of last Wednesday interviewing Toyota and Nissan sales representatives to glean their feelings about the newest auto to land in San Diego. “They wished us good luck,” Ash said.

Times staff writer Chris Woodyard in Orange County contributed to this story.