TRANSPORTATION : Shoppers Will Be Able to Pick Up a New Car at the Mall

“While you’re at the mall, dear, would you mind picking up a new car?”

Yes, it is finally happening.

Orange County, which helped give the nation its shopping mall-centered culture, is bringing things full circle.

Starting sometime in July you can not only go to a mall to buy all the things you and the various marketing managers could ever dream of, but if you are sick of the clunker you drove there, you will be able to buy a new car to carry you and your purchases home.

Campbell Automotive Group, which gave Orange County its first taste of non-negotiable new-car prices, is bringing its Saturn franchise to Westminster Mall.

The facility will occupy a 3,200-square-foot store being modified to include financing and sales offices as well as floor space to display as many as six Saturns.

And everyone working at the mall dealership will drive Saturn demonstrators, so shoppers will be able to walk out to the parking lot and hop in the model of their choice for a test drive.

The facility, leased by Campbell Automotive Group, will be one of just a few shopping-mall showrooms in the country--and the first for Saturn. For parts and repairs, customers would have to go to Campbell’s Saturn of Santa Ana or, after September, to the company’s Huntington Beach Saturn dealership.