Penske to buy Saturn

[Dan40]

Roger is not well known for making a lot of mistakes. He must think there is something profitable there.

[fsstnotch]

Nope, he has a GREAT business plan and Saturn is the only brand of GM that is still decent. Evern been to a saturn dealership? The salesmen there are great, Saturn's sales approach is not to push. Satun is the only GM product I will ever own.

[Juggernaut]

Originally Posted by fsstnotch

Nope, he has a GREAT business plan and Saturn is the only brand of GM that is still decent. Evern been to a saturn dealership? The salesmen there are great, Saturn's sales approach is not to push. Satun is the only GM product I will ever own.

Very happy to see Penske buy Saturn! We've owned three Saturns, a 94 SL2, a 2004 Vue and now a 2007 Sky. All great cars no salesman pressure to buy them and the customer service is great!

[fsstnotch]

Yep, I had a 96 SL2, 99 SL2, and a 2004 Ion Redline and a whole slew of fords. I would buy a Sky if I could just figure out where to put my daughter when my wife was in the car....

I have a few friends who work at saturn dealerships and one that is a sales manager. Saturns whole goal is to not push a sale but let the car sell itself. Not to mention if you've ever known anyone who has done the buyback deal with saturn. Don't know if they still do that with the times but it used to be great also. I had a friend sell an Ion back after a year of owning it since new and he still wasn't upside down because they bought it back so the value was higher than a trade. Very cool! I've only ever had 1 problem with a saturn and that was with the ignition switch in the redline. it was a known issue and there was a TSB on it. when I took it in, I told them that was the problem and my friend who was a tech at another dealer in another state told me exactly what the problem was. It still took 3 tries and a total of 6 days they had the car to get it fixed. but that was a service issue at that dealership. If I had lived closer to Dayton, OH, my buddy would have fixed it right the first time.

I believe part of Penske's plan is to cut 350 dealerships nationwide (which to me it seems like they are already few and far between) but we'll see where he goes with it. I'm certain it will only get better.

My 96



04 redline


And why salesmen are not allowed to drive cars that are considered "performance"


Salesman took a corner too fast, lost control, spun 180, hit curb with pass rear wheel before going through a chain link fence and onto I35 in Oklahoma City. IDIOT!!!

[terry251]

At this point, Penske says he will keep all 350 dealerships and 13,000 employees. BUT, he is exploring building them elsewhere.

From the Denver Post June 6th, 2009:

Penske purchases Saturn brand
The racing magnate says all dealers will be offered new contracts.
By Dan Strumpf and Tom Krisher
The Associated Press
Posted: 06/06/2009 01:00:00 AM MDT


General Motors Corp. has a tentative deal to sell its Saturn brand to auto racing magnate Roger Penske's dealership group, both companies said Friday.

Penske has signed a memorandum of understanding that would give his dealership chain, Penske Automotive Group, Saturn's 350 dealerships, the companies said. Penske said that he expects to offer all the dealers new franchise agreements and will retain all 13,000 Saturn employees for now.

"I would expect that the model that we're putting together, the distribution model, will be profitable Day One," Penske said in an interview with The Associated Press. "We'll have less costs. We'll not be in the manufacturing side."

At Saturn of Denver off South Wads worth Boulevard in Jefferson County, the staff gathered to hear the news and broke out into a cheer.

"I say, I say, I say Saturn Penske," said Barbara Collins. Collins founded the foreversaturn.com website early in the year and has been instrumental in saving the brand, executives have said.

"Everybody is so excited here," she said through tears. "They saved 13,000 jobs and 350 dealerships around the country, and it's absolutely fantastic."

Collins lauded Roger Penske for deciding to buy Saturn and keep it alive.

Neither Penske nor GM would say how much Penske is paying for the brand. Penske said he expects the deal to close in the third quarter. Initially, GM will continue to produce on a contract basis the Saturn Aura sedan as well as the Vue and Outlook crossover vehicles. But Penske said he is in talks with global car manufacturers about building Saturn cars in the future.

[Juggernaut]

fsstnotch, just buy two Sky's, then your problem goes away!

[Rick Parker]

I think Penske is looking for an established dealer network for his Micro Cars.

[jhv48]

Didn't he already buy Venus and Mars?

Soon he will own all the planets.

[VRM]

Originally Posted by jhv48

Didn't he already buy Venus and Mars?

Soon he will own all the planets.

And he gets the Sky when he buys Saturn.

[Joe Wicked]

Don't forget he gets a Vue as well.

[427 S/O]

He's owned Detroit diesel for some time, curious what else he owns?.

[427sharpe]

A whole buncha racetracks, car dealerships, truck rentals, and service centers.
From what I've read, GM will continue making Saturns thru 2011-2, and then the brand will become a 'rebadger' of foreign makes. That seems to make sense. If a brand makes one or two cars that would do well stateside, but can't bring the $ for development of brand and support, Penske steps in with an existing dealer network and supply logistics. He IS buying the Spring Hill warehouse, but NOT any production plants, so the scenario makes sense. He said in his conference that he expects "Saturn to be profitable day 1" because they will not be in manufacturing. Hmmm...a Saturn F1 by McLaren?
More likely he will bring back Daewoo and any Chinese knockoffs he can find.

[Alex Donghi]

he also has one of the few GM industrial engine dealerships. The kind of engines that powers tug boats, ships, huge gen sets. They can be 32 cylinders at 169 cu in per and bigger.He clawed off Hertz truck rental which the chairman gave him 39% and 200Mil to run it. kind of like obama giving 200mil to Palua to take some gitmo prisoners that figuers at 11+ mil each LOL