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Saturn lineup undergoing revitalization.

Article Excerpt
Byline: Nick Yost, SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Hoping to follow in the successful footsteps of Cadillac, General Motors' Saturn division is in the midst of a complete product revitalization to rejuvenate what had become an increasingly moribund brand.

By the end of December, the company will have introduced four new vehicles this year and plans to have at least another three on the road by the end of next year.

The strategy, according to Jill Lajdziak, Saturn general manager, is not all that complicated. "What we're doing," she explained, "is taking the rich brand equity [and] marrying it up with a new products portfolio."

In 1985, when it was introduced with great fanfare as an independent GM subsidiary, Saturn vowed to produce "a different kind of car" from "a different kind of car company." The goal was to stem the rising tide of imports from Japan.

When the first Saturn sedan rolled off the assembly line in 1990, Saturn had lived up to that promise but not exactly in the way it intended.

The different kind of car company caught on quickly with a segment of the buying public that enjoyed the relaxed and friendly showroom experience, the haggle-free pricing policy, the opportunity to return the car for another Saturn model within 30 days or 1,500 miles, and the post-sales meetings to teach new owners about their vehicles.

But, the different kind of car turned out to be something of a dud. Saturns, although reliable, were pretty much low-tech automobiles that seemed crude in comparison with the Toyotas and Hondas they were hoping to defeat in the marketplace.

Composite body panels, optional antilock brakes and two less-than-inspiring four-cylinder engines were hardly the ingredients to provide a viable alternative to the innovative new technologies being introduced by the competition.

As the years passed, Saturn offered few new models and none came close to setting any benchmarks in automotive development. Clearly, there was no strong focus on what a competitive Saturn should be.

The Saturn loyalty rate dropped from a high of nearly 50 percent during the early 1990s to the 20 percent-30 percent range. Recently, however, it has rebounded to the mid-40s.

"Our products didn't evolve," Miss Lajdziak acknowledged. "We didn't grow the portfolio."

Still, the company acquired about 3 million customers along the way, a large percentage of whom were buyers who moved to Saturn from brands other...