Over the course of the past three days, I had the opportunity to sit
down with Saturn General Manager Jill Lajdziak several times. Our
conversations focused on the immense change in Saturn's products,
hitting on Red Line, green technologies, a Saturn subcompact and the
Saturn/Opel relationship. Here's what I learned.
Opel's OPC
performance badge graces nearly every model the company offers in
Europe, boosting both performance and go-fast looks. In the European
Astra, that means a turbo four making 240 horsepower. But Saturn's
brand pillars focus on safety, environmental consciousness and the
no-haggle dealer experience. Unfortunately, that means
Red Line models are a low
priority, requiring a business case much more dependable than
the halo-car reasoning. So
Red Line models will still appear, but only where reasonable volumes
can be sold. For example, Saturn's hot-rod roadster, the
Sky Red Line, currently
accounts for about 70 percent of all Sky sales and has
cemented the role of the performance variant in that model line. But
in cars like the Astra, a
performance model isn't a shoo-in and will require a full business
plan -– or maybe a little nudge from Lutz -– to get the
project green-lighted.
Flip the coin and start talking about Green Line, and things look
a bit more promising.
Saturn's still unsure of how to utilize the Green Line tag as a
marketing tool. Next year, GM will begin offering the Vue
hybrid in two different forms: One will use the current
belt-alternator system and the other, a more efficient two-mode
system. Saturn is dealing with how to brand and market the two
technologies, debating if two very different powertrains can share
the same Green Line name. With a
plug-in hybrid Vue set for
2010, things get even more complicated. There's also the
question of whether the
Green Line label can be expanded to other fuel-efficient and
environmentally friendly options, like FlexFuel or diesel
engines. If GM can establish a common company approach for meeting
U.S. emissions standards, a
diesel Astra has a decent chance to make it to America since
Europe has already done the engineering.
Lajdziak wouldn't
guarantee any plans to bring over the Opel Corsa subcompact, but her
enthusiastic response contained several hints, including the
comment, "We know we need one." Her answer suggests that
we're not far off from an announcement, perhaps during the 2008 auto
show season.
Saturn's Sky was
pulled into Europe as the Opel GT, but that will
likely be the only time you
see an American product cross the pond in the Opel/Saturn
relationship. From now on, cars will only flow the other way.
As next-generation Opels are being developed, Saturn will play a key
role in defining engineering targets and standards that will ensure
European cars meet the packaging expectations of Americans.
Saturn will still maintain a
few models not offered by Opel, like the Outlook, but those
products will still share a platform and powertrains with other GM
models. -- Eric Tingwall, Inside Line Contest Winner
and Citizen Journalist
