Saturn to Unveil Its First Mid-Size Car at N.Y. Show
Saturn Corp., dogged by slipping sales and a solitary line of aging subcompacts, will unveil its first mid-size sedan Wednesday at the New York International Auto Show.
The debut of the 2000 L-Series sedan and wagon, which go on sale in July, comes at a time of unusual turmoil for Saturn, the small-car unit of General Motors Corp. and a onetime pioneer in new technologies, no-dicker pricing and freer labor-management relations.
The L cars will be the first Saturns assembled away from the company’s Spring Hill, Tenn., headquarters and are seen by analysts as key to restoring some of the brand’s lost sparkle.
“Adding a line of mid-size cars is the next logical step in Saturn’s growth into a larger, stronger company,” said Cynthia Trudell, chairwoman and president of the company since January.
As the newest challenger in the mid-size market, Saturn will be going toe to toe with the best-selling Toyota Camry, Honda Accord and Ford Taurus.
“Will we knock them off? I don’t think so,” Trudell said. “But we will achieve a presence in that market. At the end of the day, it will be the customer who decides.”
The L-Series will be offered with an optional V-6 engine, another first for Saturn, and was originally scheduled for introduction at a July “homecoming” event for Saturn owners in Spring Hill. But after management examined the launch program, said company spokesman Tom Wilkinson, it decided to “look for something that would build greater awareness of the new product . . . and the New York show offered the best opportunity.
“Timing is better, you’re getting to the general public, and you have an active media presence . . . to reveal something about the whole car but not tell all.”
The L-Series--to be built at a dedicated plant in Wilmington, Del.--is based on the platform and drive train of the Opel Vectra built and sold in Europe by GM. The engines will be a 2.2-liter inline-4 developing 137 horsepower and a 3.0-liter, 182-horsepower V-6.
Pricing will not be announced until later this year, but industry observers expect Saturn to stray very little from its reputation for offering quality and safety at low cost. And with Camry, Accord and Taurus looming as the cars to beat, stickers are expected to fall in the range of $14,000 for the base LS1 to $17,000 for the LS2 and LSW sedans and wagons with V-6 power.
Although Saturn has been keeping its mid-size contender under relatively heavy wraps and embargoes, several pre-production models have been quietly shown to selected media. In recent months, the Saturn entourage has been led by Trudell, who took over in January from retiring Donald W. Hudler.
To Trudell has fallen the task of jump-starting a company that many analysts say has traded too long on its image as a family-car maker dedicated to no-haggle selling and Tennessee barbecues celebrating its polymer-paneled cars.
The last 12 months have seen a strike threat and a workers’ discrimination suit, senior management reshuffles and abrupt resignations, slumping sales and a growing dialogue that Saturn’s fragile lineup needed a fresher, larger car, even a sport-utility vehicle, to keep up with the industry.
“This car is vitally important to us,” Trudell said during a recent visit to Los Angeles. “We have been competing with one product in a compact class that represents only 17% of the total market. And our sales went down as that market went down.”
But add that 17% to the 24% market share held by mid-size cars, she said, and Saturn can now “compete in more than 40% of the [new-car] market. This opportunity to expand is quite exciting.”
