AUTOS

Saturn Apologizes With a Snicker: Saturn Corp. is about to run ads that use humor to apologize to customers for not building cars fast enough. The print ads, which will appear in newspapers this weekend, try to explain why many dealers are short on cars. One ad has a Saturn picture with the caption “demand,” and a blank spot reading “supply.” In fact, General Motors, of which Saturn is a subsidiary, has been unable to keep up with consumer demand for the cars since they were introduced in 1990. A recent strike at a Saturn plant caused a larger backlog of orders--now up to eight weeks in some areas. One ad confesses to consumers: “You’d think, with some 5,300 of us building Saturns every day, we’d have enough to go around.”