Comments on: Penske buys Saturn from GM

By: eh179driver

eh179driver — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 12:36:04 +0000

I here in the USA and was just reading about Penske in a paper. He bought Detroit Diesel some years ago when it was all but bankrupt. He turned it into a powerhouse of Diesel truck engines and sold it for a massive profit. Same with a truck transmission manufacturer. I had also forgotton that this is the same man that convinced Mercedes to build him a pushrod V8 engine for his Indy Car team. The engine was designed (by Ilmor) tested and won the Indy500 first time up in 14weeks. At the time the pushrod engine could run a higher manifold pressure than OHC engines. Over here he is considered to be a genius. I guess you don’t get to be Mercedes biggest dealer by being a fool. Quite what he will do with Saturn is a subject of a lot of speculation here right now.

By: Frontman

Frontman — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 05:49:22 +0000

I can see him looking at Opel for cars once their sale has gone through, as well as maybe one of the Chinese Brands astute enough to allow badge engineering before blind stubborness..

By: EH179driver

EH179driver — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 22:00:02 +0000

He is such an estute business man and it will be interesting to see how all of this unfolds. I am in the USA right now and it is big news here.

By: Yianni

Yianni — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 03:57:26 +0000

We’ll, we’ve seen in Australian that even rebadging a Korean made car in to a well known brand like Holden will make the car sell regardless of how bad it is.

Even if Saturn rebadge Korean or even Chinese cars they would probably still sell with the Saturn badge on them if the price is right.

I don’t think Saturn will have any problems finding manufacturers from around the world to buy cars from if they choose to go down this route.

The question is do they rebadge decent cars like Opel Astra and Vectra they currently have, or go cheap?

Saturn only have 5 cars in their range right now so it shouldn’t be too hard to find 5 decent models for them to rebadge.

At the end of the day it’s all about the dealers staying open and jobs being saved. Good news! Go Penske!

By: Andy

Andy — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 02:44:34 +0000

Maybe Opel? Holden even. If Chrysler goes bust and GM cannot get its act together, seems only natural that GM’s former appendages will ‘comunicate’ with each other to grab the old giant’s market share.

By: David

David — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 21:12:00 +0000

Saturn cannot exist as an independent entity. All of their vehicles are re-branded models from other GM divisions. Where are their cars going to come from now?

By: Andy

Andy — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 09:43:59 +0000

Theres not a more able car-dude in the US to take over Saturn. Best of luck.

By: Captain Mainwaring

Captain Mainwaring — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 08:01:22 +0000

Penske is a very sharp operator, but he’s also very exposed at dealership level, which is no doubt what’s motivated this decision.
He has big balls, and if anyone will make it work he will. If vertical integration is going to work in the US car business, he will make sure it does.
Good luck Roger.