February 20, 2024
The episode begins with co-hosts Mike Dell and Mike Wilkerson, from the auto history podcast, discussing the Saturn Car Company—a defunct American automobile manufacturer. Their conversation unfolds with enthusiasm about the history and unique aspects of Saturn, emphasizing its inception as a company intended to emulate foreign car manufacturers' success within the United States while being distinct from General Motors (GM), its parent company.
Mike Dell expresses his fascination with Saturn's approach to making cars with plastic body panels, noting how this material choice helps prevent rust and dents, especially in areas prone to harsh winters. He praises the brand for their cars still looking brand new years after production due to the plastic being colored through.
Mike Wilkerson reminisces about Saturn's emergence during his high school years in 1985 and his subsequent encounters with Saturn's vehicles. He highlights a particular Saturn movie, "Gung Ho," and its relevance to Saturn's innovative ideas. Wilkerson also parallels Saturn's use of plastic panels with the Pontiac Fiero's design.
The hosts touch upon Saturn's early leadership, specifically mentioning retired GM executives and a man named Alex Marr, who spearheaded the creation of a revolutionary small car to compete with Japanese imports. They discuss Saturn's first car models: the S-Series, SC (coupe), and SL (sedan), noting the quirky center placement of the car's dashboard cluster—a design choice that resurfaced in modern car designs.
Mike Dell and Mike Wilkerson analyze Saturn's approach to sales, describing their no-haggle pricing and the unique naming conventions of their dealerships. They also compare Saturn's retail-like car-selling approach and how it has influenced modern car brands like Tesla.
The conversation shifts to Saturn's peak year in 1994, boasting nearly 300,000 cars sold. However, they point out Saturn's struggle and eventual demise due to GM's complete takeover and subsequent brand engineering, leading to the dilution and decline of the Saturn brand.
The hosts express their disappointment over Saturn's missed opportunity for revival due to Roger Penske's failed attempt to buy the brand. They briefly mention that while Pontiac, Hummer, and Saab were also discontinued around the same time as Saturn, Hummer managed a comeback as a GMC model.
Concluding the episode, Mike Dell laments GM's decision to kill off Saturn, suggesting that the brand's unique and independent approach was not sustainable within the larger corporate structure of GM. The hosts then close the episode, inviting the audience to send in comments or questions and teasing the next episode's topic on Mopar muscle cars.
Saturn was created to compete with foreign manufacturers while being distinct from GM.
Mike Dell admires Saturn's use of plastic body panels for durability.
Mike Wilkerson recalls Saturn's impression on him during its launch in 1985.
The hosts discuss Saturn's innovative approaches, including the center dashboard cluster.
Saturn's sales strategies, such as no-haggle pricing and unique dealership naming, are analyzed.
Saturn's peak in 1994 with 300,000 cars sold is noted.
The brand's decline attributed to GM's reabsorption and brand engineering is detailed.
Disappointment over Roger Penske's failed attempt to revive Saturn is expressed.
Saturn's extinction is contrasted with Hummer's resurgence as a GMC model.
Concluding views on Saturn's unsuitability within GM's corporate structure are offered.
Closure with an invitation for audience engagement and a teaser for the next episode on Mopar muscle cars.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
[Mike Dell]Hello. Welcome to the auto history podcast. And,
[Mike Dell]today, we're gonna talk about something a little
[Mike Dell]newer than, we talked about last time.
[Mike Wilkerson]I'm excited about this one, Mike. This is
[Mike Wilkerson]gonna be great.
[Mike Dell]Yeah. You know, I I had never really
[Mike Dell]dug into, this particular subject before, and I
[Mike Dell]have zero experience with the brand, but, it
(00:21):
[Mike Dell]was an interesting story. So we're gonna be
[Mike Dell]talking about the Saturn corporation and Yeah. The
[Mike Dell]Saturn car company, which has come and gone,
[Mike Dell]all in the space, what, about twenty years,
[Mike Dell]maybe less. I don't know. But, yeah, they're
[Mike Dell]they were an interesting car company that, you
[Mike Dell]know, they they really set out to be,
(00:45):
[Mike Dell]like, a foreign car company, but here in
[Mike Dell]the in the states. And they they were
[Mike Dell]completely and utterly separate from GM, although GM
[Mike Dell]kinda owned them, but they were a separate
[Mike Dell]car company with separate management and, you know,
[Mike Dell]everything was done completely away from GM, at
(01:06):
[Mike Dell]least at the beginning.
[Mike Wilkerson]Yeah. The this car brand was created right
[Mike Wilkerson]in the middle of my high school scholastic
[Mike Wilkerson]experience. In nineteen eighty five, I was, middle
[Mike Wilkerson]of my sophomore year, and I remember vividly
[Mike Wilkerson]starting to see the croppings up of these
[Mike Wilkerson]vehicles. And, the the the story is wonderful.
(01:29):
[Mike Wilkerson]More importantly, some of the vehicles have some
[Mike Wilkerson]really wonderful indicators and and just hallmarks that
[Mike Wilkerson]have, I I I continue. There's a there's
[Mike Wilkerson]actually one that's still at my wife's Target
[Mike Wilkerson]today.
[Mike Dell]Yeah.
[Mike Wilkerson]And every time I walk by it, it's
[Mike Wilkerson]it's a it's a black one. Every time
[Mike Wilkerson]I walk by it, I think of I
[Mike Wilkerson]think of this car company.
[Mike Dell]Yeah. And, you know, the the the crazy
(01:51):
[Mike Dell]part about it is, you know, at first,
[Mike Dell]they did a whole lot of things that
[Mike Dell]were different, like, you know, plastic body panels.
[Mike Dell]And, you know, you could, you know, like,
[Mike Dell]around here, we we have a lot of
[Mike Dell]rust.
[Mike Wilkerson]Mhmm. But you
[Mike Dell]could see Saturn's running around, and they look
[Mike Dell]like brand new still because, you know, from
[Mike Dell]the nineties or the early, you know, the
(02:13):
[Mike Dell]or late eighties, and they look great. You
[Mike Dell]know, underneath, they're probably all rotted, but, you
[Mike Dell]know, like a Corvette. You know? Any Corvettes
[Mike Dell]that run around in the winter up here
[Mike Dell]probably are rotten in the underneath, but, they
[Mike Dell]don't rust, and they don't dent, and door
[Mike Dell]dings and all that stuff. It was you
[Mike Dell]know, the plastic was colored all the way
[Mike Dell]through, so it wasn't paint. It was, it
(02:35):
[Mike Dell]was that color plastic. And then they matched
[Mike Dell]the painted parts. I think the hood and
[Mike Dell]the roof was, metal, and they matched that
[Mike Dell]to, the plastic color. But the the cars
[Mike Dell]were, you know, solid plastic, which, you know,
[Mike Dell]doesn't sound super quality, but it it actually
[Mike Dell]worked out.
[Mike Wilkerson]Well, there there's two really interesting pieces here.
(02:57):
[Mike Wilkerson]Especially the cropping of the company was sandwiched
[Mike Wilkerson]with something called Gung Ho. It was a
[Mike Wilkerson]feature film starring Michael Keaton. It's a, essentially,
[Mike Wilkerson]a a dramedy, that, if you haven't seen
[Mike Wilkerson]it, I really do recommend it. Not just
[Mike Wilkerson]because of the content that we're talking about
[Mike Wilkerson]today, which is a a car company outside
(03:17):
[Mike Wilkerson]the box of what is American engineering trying
[Mike Wilkerson]to harness on to other things inside the
[Mike Wilkerson]car manufacturing industry. Gung ho gives you a
[Mike Wilkerson]a really interesting peek at what happens inside
[Mike Wilkerson]of this, this generator facility that Michael Keaton
[Mike Wilkerson]is, actually tethered in. It's really good. That
[Mike Wilkerson]movie was released in nineteen eighty six, which
(03:38):
[Mike Wilkerson]was a year after, Saturn began. So I
[Mike Wilkerson]can't tell you that there were pieces of
[Mike Wilkerson]Saturn and either the culmination of Saturn put
[Mike Wilkerson]into it. But, again, it was a very
[Mike Wilkerson]different representation of what I think anybody that's
[Mike Wilkerson]interested in American car building would have been
[Mike Wilkerson]either familiar with or maybe had seen or
[Mike Wilkerson]taken something in from some sort of propaganda
(03:58):
[Mike Wilkerson]movie that talks about car, production lines. And
[Mike Wilkerson]the the second thing that I remember vividly
[Mike Wilkerson]about this period of time, this is also
[Mike Wilkerson]the period of time when the Fierro came
[Mike Wilkerson]out from Pontiac.
[Mike Dell]Yeah. I remember those. We have
[Mike Wilkerson]links. And we'll we'll have links to all
[Mike Wilkerson]this inside the show notes. But for those
[Mike Wilkerson]that forget, the Fierro was essentially a plastic
(04:20):
[Mike Wilkerson]car.
[Mike Dell]Yep. Yeah. It was, yeah, same sort of
[Mike Dell]body panels as the Saturn, although it was
[Mike Dell]kind of a little hot rod looking car.
[Mike Dell]Yeah. Well, an or the car type thing.
[Mike Wilkerson]But Yeah. That that's really what, helped the
[Mike Wilkerson]Fiero make its mark is that, it was
[Mike Wilkerson]this very different looking car. And, oh, by
(04:42):
[Mike Wilkerson]the way, it's plastic. In fact, look at
[Mike Wilkerson]this guy start kneeing the doors and the
[Mike Wilkerson]and the paneling of the car, and look,
[Mike Wilkerson]nothing happens.
[Mike Dell]Yeah.
[Mike Wilkerson]And, so both of those things are what
[Mike Wilkerson]I think of with the onset of Saturn,
[Mike Wilkerson]because the again, it was the I always
[Mike Wilkerson]tell people that I like to work with
[Mike Wilkerson]people that when they get into a space,
[Mike Wilkerson]they'll be free to work with their elbows
(05:03):
[Mike Wilkerson]and start making some elbow room. Right? I
[Mike Wilkerson]really enjoy that because both of these things,
[Mike Wilkerson]Gung Ho the movie, but then also, the
[Mike Wilkerson]Fierro, both were doing that as was Saturn.
[Mike Dell]Yep. Yep. And so, yeah, it was it
[Mike Dell]was definitely different. You know, they formed formed
[Mike Dell]a company back in eighty two, and, it
[Mike Dell]was like some retired GM executives that, sort
(05:27):
[Mike Dell]of ran it at first. Alex Marr, I
[Mike Dell]think it's how it's pronounced. Wanted to do
[Mike Dell]a revolutionary, jeez, edit point, revolutionary new small
[Mike Dell]car. And, you know, like I said, it,
[Mike Dell]took a little while to form the corporation,
(05:47):
[Mike Dell]but, he had that idea way back. And,
[Mike Dell]you know, the basically, they were trying to
[Mike Dell]compete with the Japanese imports, you know, in
[Mike Dell]the small car market, which GM had failed
[Mike Dell]at miserably a few times, you know, the
[Mike Dell]the Chevette, the the Vega, the, you know,
[Mike Dell]the Opels, that kind of thing that never
(06:08):
[Mike Dell]really took off. And this really did kinda
[Mike Dell]take off. They got their first car out
[Mike Dell]in nineteen ninety, with the s series, and
[Mike Dell]they had the SC, which was a coupe,
[Mike Dell]two door, and then they had the, SL,
[Mike Dell]I think. Anyway, which was a sedan, you
(06:29):
[Mike Dell]know, a little four door. And, you know,
[Mike Dell]they they were kinda odd looking. You know,
[Mike Dell]you get in them. The the instrument cluster
[Mike Dell]is in the middle of the dash instead
[Mike Dell]of in front of the driver.
[Mike Wilkerson]Which again is another one of those revolutionary
[Mike Wilkerson]points that struck, solidly over the course of
[Mike Wilkerson]probably the last five years again
(06:50):
[Mike Dell]Mhmm.
[Mike Wilkerson]As automakers are starting to see value in
[Mike Wilkerson]that. For those that haven't driven in a
[Mike Wilkerson]car like this that has the cluster in
[Mike Wilkerson]the center, you you might think to yourself,
[Mike Wilkerson]man, that's completely not intuitive until you try
[Mike Wilkerson]it. And then suddenly you realize that a
[Mike Wilkerson]glance down at the center actually is, especially
[Mike Wilkerson]if you've got decent peripheral vision, is really
(07:12):
[Mike Wilkerson]something revolutionary where you actually do have far
[Mike Wilkerson]more vision than shoving your gaze down into,
[Mike Wilkerson]essentially, the the crotch of your steering wheel.
[Mike Dell]Well, that steering wheel doesn't get in the
[Mike Dell]way. So, you know, you Right. You know,
[Mike Dell]like, I know on my truck, if I
[Mike Dell]put the tilt wheel all the way up,
[Mike Dell]which is what I like, I have to
(07:33):
[Mike Dell]sit up in the seat a little bit
[Mike Dell]to to see everything on the, dash.
[Mike Wilkerson]To peer through. Right. Yeah.
[Mike Dell]Yeah. But I I rented a Mini Cooper
[Mike Dell]one time, and, that's got the big round
[Mike Dell]gauge in the center of the dash. And,
[Mike Dell]it didn't take long to get used to.
[Mike Wilkerson]Yeah. Something else that you you'd mentioned I
[Mike Wilkerson]wanna make sure we talked about was the
[Mike Wilkerson]the the concept of a company becoming a
(07:55):
[Mike Wilkerson]subsidiary of GM is really rather novel. And
[Mike Wilkerson]when you think about something like that being
[Mike Wilkerson]able to happen nowadays, it's just it's an
[Mike Wilkerson]alien concept.
[Mike Dell]Yeah. Like, these big car companies that, you
[Mike Dell]know, they have several divisions. Well, this wasn't
[Mike Dell]a division. This was a separate company that
[Mike Dell]was sort of affiliated with GM. You know?
(08:15):
[Mike Dell]That was weird.
[Mike Wilkerson]Yeah. Well, not only was it weird.
[Mike Dell]I I
[Mike Wilkerson]I was again, it's it's the the people
[Mike Wilkerson]running into a space and using elbows to
[Mike Wilkerson]make elbow room, and, again, that's why I
[Mike Wilkerson]find it incredibly endearing.
[Mike Dell]Yeah. One of the things Saturn did was
[Mike Dell]they had only stand alone dealerships, which, you
[Mike Dell]know and and they couldn't be like, you
(08:36):
[Mike Dell]know, Joe Schmoe's Saturn. It was it was
[Mike Dell]the city and Saturn. That was what they
[Mike Dell]were the dealers were able you know, were
[Mike Dell]required to say. So, you know, we had
[Mike Dell]one here in town that was in a
[Mike Dell]big auto group. You know, we had a
[Mike Dell]we have an auto group here called Bill
[Mike Dell]Marsh, you know, that has all the different
[Mike Dell]brands, so they had the Saturn. And it
[Mike Dell]had to be Saturn of Traverse City. It
(08:58):
[Mike Dell]wasn't Bill Marsh Saturn. And that was a
[Mike Dell]novel concept. The other thing was there was
[Mike Dell]no
[Mike Wilkerson]Which is also something that, which is also
[Mike Wilkerson]something that Tesla has picked out, which I
[Mike Wilkerson]I I find incredibly interesting.
[Mike Dell]Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. Tesla does that. And I
[Mike Dell]know I think there's a few other brands
[Mike Dell]that, try to do that. But, you know,
(09:19):
[Mike Dell]with with Saturn, they also had no haggle
[Mike Dell]pricing. So it was not a dealership per
[Mike Dell]se. It was a retail shop. Right. And
[Mike Dell]this is the price. You're gonna pay this
[Mike Dell]price. You know? That's For for
[Mike Wilkerson]lack of better term, it was it was
[Mike Wilkerson]a candy bar. Like, here's here's the candy
[Mike Wilkerson]bar. We can do your custom wrappers, and
[Mike Wilkerson]here will be the price for your candy
(09:40):
[Mike Wilkerson]bar. Very again, a very interesting concept that's,
[Mike Wilkerson]you know, as much as you wanna especially
[Mike Wilkerson]nowadays, depending on the feature sets and depending
[Mike Wilkerson]on the line of car, the the the,
[Mike Wilkerson]the different modes and different models and different
[Mike Wilkerson]things that you can have done to a
[Mike Dell]car. Mhmm.
[Mike Wilkerson]This was just getting down to brass tacks
[Mike Wilkerson]of which one do you want, pointing at
(10:01):
[Mike Wilkerson]it, here's the price, and here you go.
[Mike Wilkerson]Get out the door.
[Mike Dell]Yep. And and, you know, it was it
[Mike Dell]was a lot easier to buy a Saturn,
[Mike Dell]say, than a Buick or Good question. Yeah.
[Mike Dell]You know? It's, I I thought it was
[Mike Dell]kinda cool. You know, I I was a
[Mike Dell]little older than you when they came out,
[Mike Dell]and and, you know, I actually remember them,
(10:22):
[Mike Dell]you know, with wow. That's a weird dealership.
[Mike Dell]It's got you know? But, you know, there
[Mike Dell]was a literal crap ton of Saturn sold,
[Mike Dell]you know, from ninety to, you know, maybe
[Mike Dell]two thousand. They were doing really good. Mhmm.
[Mike Dell]And maybe a a little bit after that,
[Mike Dell]but, then they tried to diversify a bit.
(10:44):
[Mike Dell]You know? That was the that was the,
[Mike Dell]thing that I think was their downfall. The,
[Mike Dell]you know, they had a couple of good
[Mike Dell]models that they expanded. You know, they did
[Mike Dell]a wagon version. That went real well Mhmm.
[Mike Dell]Because it was just a Saturn with with
[Mike Dell]a wagon back on it.
[Mike Wilkerson]Right.
[Mike Dell]And then they did a little SUV. That
[Mike Dell]was a true Saturn. You know? It was,
(11:05):
[Mike Dell]you know, they
[Mike Wilkerson]It's also the one that I remember the
[Mike Wilkerson]most, I think, in In in ninety when,
[Mike Wilkerson]they originally started to launch stuff. It was
[Mike Wilkerson]my first year of college, and I remember
[Mike Wilkerson]one of my instructors having one. It was
[Mike Wilkerson]a green one. And the green that they
[Mike Wilkerson]selected, again, we'll have, pictures and links inside
[Mike Wilkerson]the show notes for this episode over at
(11:25):
[Mike Wilkerson]auto digital podcast dot com. The, the green
[Mike Wilkerson]that they had, it's a very interesting green
[Mike Wilkerson]because it's not a forest green. It's not
[Mike Wilkerson]a money green. It it's it it it
[Mike Wilkerson]is a color inside a crayon box, and
[Mike Wilkerson]that's how I would describe it as essentially
[Mike Wilkerson]green from a, a crayon box.
(11:47):
[Mike Dell]Yeah. It's a very I remember them being,
[Mike Dell]like, kind of a a dark green, like
[Mike Dell]a British racing green or something, but they
[Mike Dell]don't I I I think they had a
[Mike Dell]bright colored one too, you know, that was
[Mike Dell]Yeah.
[Mike Wilkerson]When again, it was one of my instructor's
[Mike Wilkerson]cars, and I I always knew whether, she
[Mike Wilkerson]was there or not. And it struck me.
[Mike Wilkerson]It's it's when I think of Saturn, there's
(12:08):
[Mike Wilkerson]two cars I think of. I think of
[Mike Wilkerson]this this, this black one that's at Target
[Mike Wilkerson]near my wife's work still today, this these
[Mike Wilkerson]many years later. Great shape, by the way.
[Mike Dell]Yeah.
[Mike Wilkerson]Well, you know, they don't rust. Yeah. Right.
[Mike Wilkerson]And then, and then this green one that
[Mike Wilkerson]my instructor in in, in college had. But
[Mike Wilkerson]both of those are the two that I
[Mike Wilkerson]think of instantly.
[Mike Dell]Yeah. Well, the biggest year they had was
(12:29):
[Mike Dell]nineteen ninety four. So they did almost three
[Mike Dell]hundred thousand cars in ninety four. So
[Mike Wilkerson]Yeah. Which is a lot of cars. I
[Mike Wilkerson]I I think a lot of people are
[Mike Wilkerson]under the impression that, you know, it's gonna
[Mike Wilkerson]be millions of cars and it matters. Especially
[Mike Wilkerson]back then, this was a ton of cars
[Mike Wilkerson]that that has a lot of vehicles that
(12:50):
[Mike Wilkerson]are riding the road.
[Mike Dell]Yeah. But, of course, in two thousand eight,
[Mike Dell]they, had a little problem.
[Mike Wilkerson]As did everyone. Right?
[Mike Dell]Yeah. So GM went bankrupt. And by that
[Mike Dell]time, they were a full subsidiary of GM
[Mike Dell]because that changed over the years. Mhmm. And,
[Mike Dell]anyway, so they decided they were gonna get
(13:10):
[Mike Dell]rid of some brands. So they got rid
[Mike Dell]of Pontiac. They got rid of, Hummer. They
[Mike Dell]got rid of Saturn. And I think they
[Mike Dell]got rid of oh, Saab. Because at that
[Mike Dell]time, GM had Saab. And, you know, it's
[Mike Dell]just like, poof, they're gone. We're either gonna
[Mike Dell]sell them or not, you know, or we're
[Mike Dell]gonna quit making them or whatever. I'm surprised
(13:31):
[Mike Dell]nobody picked up Pontiac. That would have been
[Mike Dell]a good brand for some other car company,
[Mike Dell]but, you know, they were all hurt at
[Mike Dell]that time.
[Mike Wilkerson]So I was surprised too. The other one
[Mike Wilkerson]that surprised me too, you'd mentioned Saab.
[Mike Dell]Mhmm.
[Mike Wilkerson]Man, I I had a girlfriend that drove
[Mike Wilkerson]a Saab, and I really or her dad.
[Mike Wilkerson]And I really enjoyed, the the driving of
(13:51):
[Mike Wilkerson]that car. Other than that car, I've never
[Mike Wilkerson]driven another one, but it had a unique
[Mike Wilkerson]look and, I really enjoyed the controls that
[Mike Wilkerson]were behind that that sub model.
[Mike Dell]Yeah. They, they they had a weird place
[Mike Dell]to put the key. Right. On some of
[Mike Dell]those. They were it was on the floor
[Mike Dell]between the front seats. You know?
[Mike Wilkerson]Yeah. Yeah. Again, very very interesting. It's a
(14:12):
[Mike Wilkerson]it's a piece of that spill from the,
[Mike Wilkerson]the, European mechanism set. And, again, I I
[Mike Wilkerson]really enjoyed it. It felt really cool.
[Mike Dell]Yeah. Well, Saab is still around in the
[Mike Dell]aircraft world. Right. And, in fact, they're making
[Mike Dell]the new, t seven Redhawk, which is to
(14:32):
[Mike Dell]replace the, jet trainers for the US Air
[Mike Dell]Force.
[Mike Wilkerson]Interesting.
[Mike Dell]Yeah. It's a Saab Saab and Boeing, I
[Mike Dell]think, are together on it, but, it's a
[Mike Dell]it's a single engine supersonic jet trainer, and
[Mike Dell]it's it's really cool looking. They're just now
[Mike Dell]getting them, you know, production on those. But,
[Mike Dell]anyway, for those that are familiar with Bob
(14:54):
[Mike Dell]today.
[Mike Wilkerson]Yeah. Yeah. For those that are familiar, Mike's
[Mike Wilkerson]got a tether into the Air Force. Do
[Mike Wilkerson]you not?
[Mike Dell]Yes. I'm an Air Force veteran and spent
[Mike Dell]better part of ten years, flying around the
[Mike Dell]world. So
[Mike Wilkerson]Yeah. Thank you for that. I totally appreciate
[Mike Wilkerson]your service. What what, what is the Redhawk
[Mike Wilkerson]going to be replacing? Do you know?
[Mike Dell]The t thirty eight.
(15:15):
[Mike Wilkerson]The t thirty eight. Man, Zach got a
[Mike Wilkerson]storied legend.
[Mike Dell]Oh, yeah. T thirty eight's been around since
[Mike Dell]the fifties, and, you know, they haven't changed
[Mike Dell]a hell of a lot.
[Mike Wilkerson]Right. Well, not only have they not changed
[Mike Wilkerson]a hell of a lot, there's, for those
[Mike Wilkerson]that aren't or I'm sorry. For those that
[Mike Wilkerson]aren't familiar with me, I have a giant
[Mike Wilkerson]interest inside of human space flight, and the
[Mike Wilkerson]t thirty eight is one of the Hallmark
(15:37):
[Mike Wilkerson]legend aircrafts, legacy aircraft Mhmm. Are used for
[Mike Wilkerson]human space flight slash astronaut training sets.
[Mike Dell]Yeah. And Yeah. All the pilots, that's what
[Mike Dell]they or all the astronauts fly around in
[Mike Dell]t thirty eights. That that'll probably stay for
[Mike Dell]a long time.
[Mike Wilkerson]Oh, I agree with that. But that's gonna
[Mike Wilkerson]be a very interesting paradigm. And frankly, I
(15:59):
[Mike Wilkerson]can't wait to see what the Red Hawk's
[Mike Wilkerson]gonna give us. That they're
[Mike Dell]transferring fuel efficiency, you know, more modern everything.
[Mike Dell]So, you know, we'll see. We'll see. But,
[Mike Dell]yeah, back to Saturn. You know, they one
[Mike Dell]of the problems with Saturn was later on
[Mike Dell]when GM took them over completely, they started
(16:22):
[Mike Dell]doing brand engineering. And, you know, they would
[Mike Dell]have Opel models be Saturns and Buick models
[Mike Dell]or, you know, they would share platforms like
[Mike Dell]the center set second generation Saturn Vue, which,
[Mike Dell]you know, is that SUV, that that car
[Mike Dell]completely switched to brand engineered over time. It
(16:47):
[Mike Dell]was, you know, it was just not such
[Mike Dell]a great thing, you know, for them, and
[Mike Dell]that's that's, I think, why they declined. They
[Mike Dell]they had a minivan that was based on
[Mike Dell]the Dustbuster minivans that GM had for a
[Mike Dell]while. And Yeah. And, you know, they had
[Mike Dell]a they had a little hot rod sports
[Mike Dell]car that's that is pretty cool. It's, I
(17:10):
[Mike Dell]forget what they call the Saturn one. Sky,
[Mike Dell]I think. But it was a little two
[Mike Dell]seat roadster, you know, and Buick, I think,
[Mike Dell]had one and or Pontiac had one. Mhmm.
[Mike Dell]And, one other brand had them, but they
[Mike Dell]were all the same car.
[Mike Wilkerson]I think the Pontiac version was was this
[Mike Wilkerson]was it the Solstice, I think?
(17:31):
[Mike Dell]Yeah. Could be. But, yeah, it was a
[Mike Dell]little two seat roadster, kinda looked like a
[Mike Dell]Miata. Yeah. But a little bigger. And, you
[Mike Dell]know, those are, you know, pretty collectible these
[Mike Dell]days. You know? There's quite a few of
[Mike Dell]them on the road, but the the Saturn
[Mike Dell]version, I think, sold the best out of
[Mike Dell]all of those.
[Mike Wilkerson]And I think it looked the best too.
[Mike Wilkerson]I'm not sure if it's because it got
[Mike Wilkerson]the, the attention span that it needed before
(17:52):
[Mike Wilkerson]before all hell fell down. But
[Mike Dell]Yeah.
[Mike Wilkerson]I I I thought it looked the best
[Mike Wilkerson]of the of the bunch too.
[Mike Dell]Yeah. One of the one of the things
[Mike Dell]was, you know, when GM decided to kill
[Mike Dell]him, they they, Roger Penske, you know, the
[Mike Dell]guys that he he has the the all
[Mike Dell]the truck company and the racing stuff. And
[Mike Dell]and, he attempted to buy it, but he
(18:13):
[Mike Dell]couldn't get enough, investors and, interest in continuing
[Mike Dell]Saturn. But that would have been interesting. You
[Mike Dell]know, it'd be a completely independent company if
[Mike Dell]Penske took it over.
[Mike Wilkerson]What a very interesting transition that would have
[Mike Wilkerson]been too. For those that aren't familiar with
[Mike Wilkerson]Penske, again, we'll have links inside the show
[Mike Wilkerson]notes to, not only Penske, but it's the,
[Mike Wilkerson]the legacy of pet of Penske. Penske is
(18:35):
[Mike Wilkerson]a very interesting company that has tethers into
[Mike Wilkerson]all kinds of other things that would foster
[Mike Wilkerson]along a car company. And Oh, yeah. For
[Mike Wilkerson]sure. That didn't happen is very, very interesting
[Mike Wilkerson]twist of events. If there was a if
[Mike Wilkerson]there was a what if universe, I would
[Mike Wilkerson]love to see what would have happened if
[Mike Wilkerson]Penske would have been able to latch on
[Mike Wilkerson]there.
[Mike Dell]Yeah. They did, bring back Hummer, sort of.
(18:58):
[Mike Dell]They, brought it back as a GMC model,
[Mike Dell]for, you know, all electric. And, you know,
[Mike Dell]if you got a hundred and fifty thousand
[Mike Dell]dollars laying around, you can have an electric
[Mike Dell]pickup that, won't do everything you want it
[Mike Dell]to do.
[Mike Wilkerson]Yeah. Yeah. I've I've been watching the, the
[Mike Wilkerson]releases of that along with all of the
[Mike Wilkerson]other electric stuff that's been coming out. We'll
[Mike Wilkerson]we'll include some of that inside the show
(19:18):
[Mike Wilkerson]notes. Now there's a couple of videos in
[Mike Wilkerson]particular about the electric hummers that have come
[Mike Wilkerson]out that, I I find really endearing because,
[Mike Wilkerson]in addition to showcasing a lot of the
[Mike Wilkerson]benefits of what's going on inside of the
[Mike Wilkerson]EV set, but also for the HUMMER EV
[Mike Wilkerson]set, what you're also seeing are some very
[Mike Wilkerson]credible showcased reflections of why they may not
(19:39):
[Mike Wilkerson]be the next evolutionary step of vehicles even
[Mike Wilkerson]though that's what they're claiming to be. Right.
[Mike Wilkerson]I I always enjoy the the videos that
[Mike Wilkerson]are put out that give you at least
[Mike Wilkerson]a flip side of the coin beyond just
[Mike Wilkerson]the wow EV, this is the future. Then
[Mike Wilkerson]they'll also give you some other stuff. So
[Mike Wilkerson]we'll we'll link up to those inside the
[Mike Wilkerson]show notes as well.
(20:00):
[Mike Dell]Yep. For sure. So but, yeah, with with
[Mike Dell]Saturn, it just, you know, it just didn't
[Mike Dell]work, and I think it was because GM
[Mike Dell]took them over.
[Mike Wilkerson]No. There's no question. I mean, it's it's
[Mike Wilkerson]why, before I had I'd remarked about how
[Mike Wilkerson]you just don't see this anymore, and there's
[Mike Wilkerson]a grand reason why. It's mostly because people
(20:21):
[Mike Wilkerson]that have this much money and this much
[Mike Wilkerson]into a game do not like to splinter
[Mike Wilkerson]off the game.
[Mike Dell]Yeah. You know, Toyota didn't do so well
[Mike Dell]with their little offshoot there for a while.
[Mike Dell]I what was that called? I forget. You
[Mike Dell]know, of course, Lexus, they're doing alright. But,
[Mike Dell]what was the other the low low market
(20:42):
[Mike Dell]brand they had for a while? I can't
[Mike Dell]remember it now. But, anyway, they they they
[Mike Dell]had they did that and, and, you know,
[Mike Dell]just people weren't interested in it. They want
[Mike Dell]a Toyota or Lexus. You know? And, you
[Mike Dell]know, GM, I mean, they they make a
[Mike Dell]lot of good cars, and they, like, make
[Mike Dell]a lot of crappy cars. Right. Just like
(21:03):
[Mike Dell]any company. You know? There's certain cars that
[Mike Dell]are just duds and and you know? But
[Mike Dell]Saturn, Intel, GM took them over, and they
[Mike Dell]started brand engineering. Really didn't have any duds.
[Mike Dell]You know, they didn't have anything, you know,
[Mike Dell]crazy going on. They didn't have huge recalls.
[Mike Dell]Nothing like that. It was, you know, they
[Mike Dell]were just good, solid, simple cars.
(21:23):
[Mike Wilkerson]Well, I think they still are. Again, they
[Mike Wilkerson]go to the indicator of that one that's
[Mike Wilkerson]in front of my wife's target every single
[Mike Wilkerson]day. I also the the, the driver of
[Mike Wilkerson]that car is also wheelchair bound. And, it
[Mike Wilkerson]it's a smaller car, but it does exactly
[Mike Wilkerson]what she needs to every single day of
[Mike Wilkerson]the year. And, again, it's
[Mike Dell]Is that a coupe?
(21:43):
[Mike Wilkerson]It is. Yeah. Mhmm.
[Mike Dell]Yeah. Because it's got the big doors on
[Mike Dell]it. That probably helps a lot. Yeah. Yeah.
[Mike Dell]And you can slide stuff in the back
[Mike Dell]seat. Some of them had suicide doors on
[Mike Dell]the back of the coupe. Yeah. Yeah. Little
[Mike Dell]half doors kinda like you'd find on an
[Mike Dell]extra cab pickup or something. And, you know,
[Mike Dell]that that would lend itself well to, you
[Mike Dell]know, folding, loading a wheelchair in. So, yeah,
(22:05):
[Mike Dell]probably pretty practical for that Yeah. Application. Yeah.
[Mike Dell]So but, yeah, it, like I said, Saturn
[Mike Dell]was a cool car company, a cool idea
[Mike Dell]that, just over time didn't fit in with
[Mike Dell]the big corporate, entity such as GM. So
(22:26):
[Mike Dell]Yeah.
[Mike Wilkerson]You know, something else that we didn't talk
[Mike Wilkerson]about either at the front end of this
[Mike Wilkerson]was the the name. You know? Yeah. I
[Mike Wilkerson]I think a lot of people forget forget
[Mike Wilkerson]that names really do matter.
[Mike Dell]Yes.
[Mike Wilkerson]And, we we can especially inside of cars,
[Mike Wilkerson]especially inside of car models.
[Mike Dell]You can
[Mike Wilkerson]go back. In fact, we we should probably
[Mike Wilkerson]cobble together an episode of, the the cars
(22:47):
[Mike Wilkerson]that have the goofiest names that are still
[Mike Wilkerson]somehow popular, something like that.
[Mike Dell]Yeah.
[Mike Wilkerson]But but, Saturn is another great sample of
[Mike Wilkerson]a company that went, literally outside the box,
[Mike Wilkerson]moving its elbows around trying to make elbow
[Mike Wilkerson]room, but then named it something really familiar
[Mike Wilkerson]to people. And what I what I will
[Mike Wilkerson]definitely do is I'll go and I'll find
(23:08):
[Mike Wilkerson]more about the the origin point of the
[Mike Wilkerson]actual name being conjured and connected.
[Mike Dell]You know, a lot of people think it's
[Mike Dell]named after the planet.
[Mike Wilkerson]Right.
[Mike Dell]Saturn. It's not. Right. Right. It's named after
[Mike Dell]the, NASA rocket Saturn rockets.
[Mike Wilkerson]Right. Right. Which is another piece of endearment
[Mike Wilkerson]here that I'm absolutely certain nobody knows. What
(23:29):
[Mike Wilkerson]Mike is referring to is the Saturn five
[Mike Wilkerson]rocket, which is what originally took us to
[Mike Wilkerson]the moon, which Yeah. Again, it's why human
[Mike Wilkerson]spaceflight is so endearing to me. The concept
[Mike Wilkerson]of all of those hundreds of thousands of
[Mike Wilkerson]people coming together to get three dudes to
[Mike Wilkerson]the moon across the different missions. Man, I
[Mike Wilkerson]I it it it makes me it makes
[Mike Wilkerson]me bubble with energy right now as I
(23:51):
[Mike Wilkerson]say the words. And it's something that I
[Mike Wilkerson]know I always try to, foster and aspire
[Mike Wilkerson]to when I jump into projects because that,
[Mike Wilkerson]that that teamwork and that that spirit of
[Mike Wilkerson]that there's something else that I know we
[Mike Wilkerson]can all get to, so let's go get
[Mike Wilkerson]there. I really admire that about that time
[Mike Wilkerson]and that this is a piece of that
[Mike Wilkerson]legacy is even more special.
(24:11):
[Mike Dell]Yeah. For sure. You know, I'm aging myself,
[Mike Dell]but I remember the the first moon landing
[Mike Dell]on TV.
[Mike Wilkerson]I I the only reason I remember it
[Mike Wilkerson]is because, it's where, it likely was I
[Mike Wilkerson]was concepted. So how about them apples?
[Mike Dell]There you go. Yeah. I I remember we
[Mike Dell]had an old, old black and white TV,
(24:33):
[Mike Dell]and we watched the moon landing and Walter
[Mike Dell]Cronkite. Yeah. It was back in the day.
[Mike Dell]So, anyway, reminiscing. That's what history's all about.
[Mike Wilkerson]Yeah. Yeah. We'll we'll have copious links inside
[Mike Wilkerson]the show notes to all kinds of cool
[Mike Wilkerson]moon landing stuff.
[Mike Dell]There you go. There you go. For sure.
[Mike Dell]So I I think we covered Saturn. If
[Mike Dell]you have any, questions, comments, whatever, you can,
(24:56):
[Mike Dell]of course, get a hold of us over
[Mike Dell]at auto history podcast dot com. By the
[Mike Dell]way, the the last Saturn was, was done
[Mike Dell]in or was built in October of twenty
[Mike Dell]ten. So they did last a little past
[Mike Dell]the, GM bankruptcy. So, you know, gotta get
[Mike Dell]the
[Mike Wilkerson]date set up. Amazing that a company that
(25:16):
[Mike Wilkerson]started that's that small can somehow eke out
[Mike Wilkerson]an existence longer and larger than GM was
[Mike Wilkerson]able to to excise themselves through.
[Mike Dell]Man,
[Mike Wilkerson]that is just, isn't that the cherry on
[Mike Wilkerson]top of this story, Mike?
[Mike Dell]Yes. For sure. So, catch us next week
[Mike Dell]or next two weeks. We're gonna do this
(25:36):
[Mike Dell]twice a month for now. We may up
[Mike Dell]this, but, next week we're gonna talk or
[Mike Dell]next episode. Geez. I gotta get that right.
[Mike Dell]We're gonna be talking about, Mopar muscle cars.
[Mike Dell]That's kinda right in your wheelhouse, Mike.
[Mike Wilkerson]Very exciting time. I can't wait to do
[Mike Dell]Hello. Welcome to the auto history podcast. And,
[Mike Dell]today, we're gonna talk about something a little
[Mike Dell]newer than, we talked about last time.
[Mike Wilkerson]I'm excited about this one, Mike. This is
[Mike Wilkerson]gonna be great.
[Mike Dell]Yeah. You know, I I had never really
[Mike Dell]dug into, this particular subject before, and I
[Mike Dell]have zero experience with the brand, but, it
(00:21):
[Mike Dell]was an interesting story. So we're gonna be
[Mike Dell]talking about the Saturn corporation and Yeah. The
[Mike Dell]Saturn car company, which has come and gone,
[Mike Dell]all in the space, what, about twenty years,
[Mike Dell]maybe less. I don't know. But, yeah, they're
[Mike Dell]they were an interesting car company that, you
[Mike Dell]know, they they really set out to be,
(00:45):
[Mike Dell]like, a foreign car company, but here in
[Mike Dell]the in the states. And they they were
[Mike Dell]completely and utterly separate from GM, although GM
[Mike Dell]kinda owned them, but they were a separate
[Mike Dell]car company with separate management and, you know,
[Mike Dell]everything was done completely away from GM, at
(01:06):
[Mike Dell]least at the beginning.
[Mike Wilkerson]Yeah. The this car brand was created right
[Mike Wilkerson]in the middle of my high school scholastic
[Mike Wilkerson]experience. In nineteen eighty five, I was, middle
[Mike Wilkerson]of my sophomore year, and I remember vividly
[Mike Wilkerson]starting to see the croppings up of these
[Mike Wilkerson]vehicles. And, the the the story is wonderful.
(01:29):
[Mike Wilkerson]More importantly, some of the vehicles have some
[Mike Wilkerson]really wonderful indicators and and just hallmarks that
[Mike Wilkerson]have, I I I continue. There's a there's
[Mike Wilkerson]actually one that's still at my wife's Target
[Mike Wilkerson]today.
[Mike Dell]Yeah.
[Mike Wilkerson]And every time I walk by it, it's
[Mike Wilkerson]it's a it's a black one. Every time
[Mike Wilkerson]I walk by it, I think of I
[Mike Wilkerson]think of this car company.
[Mike Dell]Yeah. And, you know, the the the crazy
(01:51):
[Mike Dell]part about it is, you know, at first,
[Mike Dell]they did a whole lot of things that
[Mike Dell]were different, like, you know, plastic body panels.
[Mike Dell]And, you know, you could, you know, like,
[Mike Dell]around here, we we have a lot of
[Mike Dell]rust.
[Mike Wilkerson]Mhmm. But you
[Mike Dell]could see Saturn's running around, and they look
[Mike Dell]like brand new still because, you know, from
[Mike Dell]the nineties or the early, you know, the
(02:13):
[Mike Dell]or late eighties, and they look great. You
[Mike Dell]know, underneath, they're probably all rotted, but, you
[Mike Dell]know, like a Corvette. You know? Any Corvettes
[Mike Dell]that run around in the winter up here
[Mike Dell]probably are rotten in the underneath, but, they
[Mike Dell]don't rust, and they don't dent, and door
[Mike Dell]dings and all that stuff. It was you
[Mike Dell]know, the plastic was colored all the way
[Mike Dell]through, so it wasn't paint. It was, it
(02:35):
[Mike Dell]was that color plastic. And then they matched
[Mike Dell]the painted parts. I think the hood and
[Mike Dell]the roof was, metal, and they matched that
[Mike Dell]to, the plastic color. But the the cars
[Mike Dell]were, you know, solid plastic, which, you know,
[Mike Dell]doesn't sound super quality, but it it actually
[Mike Dell]worked out.
[Mike Wilkerson]Well, there there's two really interesting pieces here.
(02:57):
[Mike Wilkerson]Especially the cropping of the company was sandwiched
[Mike Wilkerson]with something called Gung Ho. It was a
[Mike Wilkerson]feature film starring Michael Keaton. It's a, essentially,
[Mike Wilkerson]a a dramedy, that, if you haven't seen
[Mike Wilkerson]it, I really do recommend it. Not just
[Mike Wilkerson]because of the content that we're talking about
[Mike Wilkerson]today, which is a a car company outside
(03:17):
[Mike Wilkerson]the box of what is American engineering trying
[Mike Wilkerson]to harness on to other things inside the
[Mike Wilkerson]car manufacturing industry. Gung ho gives you a
[Mike Wilkerson]a really interesting peek at what happens inside
[Mike Wilkerson]of this, this generator facility that Michael Keaton
[Mike Wilkerson]is, actually tethered in. It's really good. That
[Mike Wilkerson]movie was released in nineteen eighty six, which
(03:38):
[Mike Wilkerson]was a year after, Saturn began. So I
[Mike Wilkerson]can't tell you that there were pieces of
[Mike Wilkerson]Saturn and either the culmination of Saturn put
[Mike Wilkerson]into it. But, again, it was a very
[Mike Wilkerson]different representation of what I think anybody that's
[Mike Wilkerson]interested in American car building would have been
[Mike Wilkerson]either familiar with or maybe had seen or
[Mike Wilkerson]taken something in from some sort of propaganda
(03:58):
[Mike Wilkerson]movie that talks about car, production lines. And
[Mike Wilkerson]the the second thing that I remember vividly
[Mike Wilkerson]about this period of time, this is also
[Mike Wilkerson]the period of time when the Fierro came
[Mike Wilkerson]out from Pontiac.
[Mike Dell]Yeah. I remember those. We have
[Mike Wilkerson]links. And we'll we'll have links to all
[Mike Wilkerson]this inside the show notes. But for those
[Mike Wilkerson]that forget, the Fierro was essentially a plastic
(04:20):
[Mike Wilkerson]car.
[Mike Dell]Yep. Yeah. It was, yeah, same sort of
[Mike Dell]body panels as the Saturn, although it was
[Mike Dell]kind of a little hot rod looking car.
[Mike Dell]Yeah. Well, an or the car type thing.
[Mike Wilkerson]But Yeah. That that's really what, helped the
[Mike Wilkerson]Fiero make its mark is that, it was
[Mike Wilkerson]this very different looking car. And, oh, by
(04:42):
[Mike Wilkerson]the way, it's plastic. In fact, look at
[Mike Wilkerson]this guy start kneeing the doors and the
[Mike Wilkerson]and the paneling of the car, and look,
[Mike Wilkerson]nothing happens.
[Mike Dell]Yeah.
[Mike Wilkerson]And, so both of those things are what
[Mike Wilkerson]I think of with the onset of Saturn,
[Mike Wilkerson]because the again, it was the I always
[Mike Wilkerson]tell people that I like to work with
[Mike Wilkerson]people that when they get into a space,
[Mike Wilkerson]they'll be free to work with their elbows
(05:03):
[Mike Wilkerson]and start making some elbow room. Right? I
[Mike Wilkerson]really enjoy that because both of these things,
[Mike Wilkerson]Gung Ho the movie, but then also, the
[Mike Wilkerson]Fierro, both were doing that as was Saturn.
[Mike Dell]Yep. Yep. And so, yeah, it was it
[Mike Dell]was definitely different. You know, they formed formed
[Mike Dell]a company back in eighty two, and, it
[Mike Dell]was like some retired GM executives that, sort
(05:27):
[Mike Dell]of ran it at first. Alex Marr, I
[Mike Dell]think it's how it's pronounced. Wanted to do
[Mike Dell]a revolutionary, jeez, edit point, revolutionary new small
[Mike Dell]car. And, you know, like I said, it,
[Mike Dell]took a little while to form the corporation,
(05:47):
[Mike Dell]but, he had that idea way back. And,
[Mike Dell]you know, the basically, they were trying to
[Mike Dell]compete with the Japanese imports, you know, in
[Mike Dell]the small car market, which GM had failed
[Mike Dell]at miserably a few times, you know, the
[Mike Dell]the Chevette, the the Vega, the, you know,
[Mike Dell]the Opels, that kind of thing that never
(06:08):
[Mike Dell]really took off. And this really did kinda
[Mike Dell]take off. They got their first car out
[Mike Dell]in nineteen ninety, with the s series, and
[Mike Dell]they had the SC, which was a coupe,
[Mike Dell]two door, and then they had the, SL,
[Mike Dell]I think. Anyway, which was a sedan, you
(06:29):
[Mike Dell]know, a little four door. And, you know,
[Mike Dell]they they were kinda odd looking. You know,
[Mike Dell]you get in them. The the instrument cluster
[Mike Dell]is in the middle of the dash instead
[Mike Dell]of in front of the driver.
[Mike Wilkerson]Which again is another one of those revolutionary
[Mike Wilkerson]points that struck, solidly over the course of
[Mike Wilkerson]probably the last five years again
(06:50):
[Mike Dell]Mhmm.
[Mike Wilkerson]As automakers are starting to see value in
[Mike Wilkerson]that. For those that haven't driven in a
[Mike Wilkerson]car like this that has the cluster in
[Mike Wilkerson]the center, you you might think to yourself,
[Mike Wilkerson]man, that's completely not intuitive until you try
[Mike Wilkerson]it. And then suddenly you realize that a
[Mike Wilkerson]glance down at the center actually is, especially
[Mike Wilkerson]if you've got decent peripheral vision, is really
(07:12):
[Mike Wilkerson]something revolutionary where you actually do have far
[Mike Wilkerson]more vision than shoving your gaze down into,
[Mike Wilkerson]essentially, the the crotch of your steering wheel.
[Mike Dell]Well, that steering wheel doesn't get in the
[Mike Dell]way. So, you know, you Right. You know,
[Mike Dell]like, I know on my truck, if I
[Mike Dell]put the tilt wheel all the way up,
[Mike Dell]which is what I like, I have to
(07:33):
[Mike Dell]sit up in the seat a little bit
[Mike Dell]to to see everything on the, dash.
[Mike Wilkerson]To peer through. Right. Yeah.
[Mike Dell]Yeah. But I I rented a Mini Cooper
[Mike Dell]one time, and, that's got the big round
[Mike Dell]gauge in the center of the dash. And,
[Mike Dell]it didn't take long to get used to.
[Mike Wilkerson]Yeah. Something else that you you'd mentioned I
[Mike Wilkerson]wanna make sure we talked about was the
[Mike Wilkerson]the the concept of a company becoming a
(07:55):
[Mike Wilkerson]subsidiary of GM is really rather novel. And
[Mike Wilkerson]when you think about something like that being
[Mike Wilkerson]able to happen nowadays, it's just it's an
[Mike Wilkerson]alien concept.
[Mike Dell]Yeah. Like, these big car companies that, you
[Mike Dell]know, they have several divisions. Well, this wasn't
[Mike Dell]a division. This was a separate company that
[Mike Dell]was sort of affiliated with GM. You know?
(08:15):
[Mike Dell]That was weird.
[Mike Wilkerson]Yeah. Well, not only was it weird.
[Mike Dell]I I
[Mike Wilkerson]I was again, it's it's the the people
[Mike Wilkerson]running into a space and using elbows to
[Mike Wilkerson]make elbow room, and, again, that's why I
[Mike Wilkerson]find it incredibly endearing.
[Mike Dell]Yeah. One of the things Saturn did was
[Mike Dell]they had only stand alone dealerships, which, you
[Mike Dell]know and and they couldn't be like, you
(08:36):
[Mike Dell]know, Joe Schmoe's Saturn. It was it was
[Mike Dell]the city and Saturn. That was what they
[Mike Dell]were the dealers were able you know, were
[Mike Dell]required to say. So, you know, we had
[Mike Dell]one here in town that was in a
[Mike Dell]big auto group. You know, we had a
[Mike Dell]we have an auto group here called Bill
[Mike Dell]Marsh, you know, that has all the different
[Mike Dell]brands, so they had the Saturn. And it
[Mike Dell]had to be Saturn of Traverse City. It
(08:58):
[Mike Dell]wasn't Bill Marsh Saturn. And that was a
[Mike Dell]novel concept. The other thing was there was
[Mike Dell]no
[Mike Wilkerson]Which is also something that, which is also
[Mike Wilkerson]something that Tesla has picked out, which I
[Mike Wilkerson]I I find incredibly interesting.
[Mike Dell]Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. Tesla does that. And I
[Mike Dell]know I think there's a few other brands
[Mike Dell]that, try to do that. But, you know,
(09:19):
[Mike Dell]with with Saturn, they also had no haggle
[Mike Dell]pricing. So it was not a dealership per
[Mike Dell]se. It was a retail shop. Right. And
[Mike Dell]this is the price. You're gonna pay this
[Mike Dell]price. You know? That's For for
[Mike Wilkerson]lack of better term, it was it was
[Mike Wilkerson]a candy bar. Like, here's here's the candy
[Mike Wilkerson]bar. We can do your custom wrappers, and
[Mike Wilkerson]here will be the price for your candy
(09:40):
[Mike Wilkerson]bar. Very again, a very interesting concept that's,
[Mike Wilkerson]you know, as much as you wanna especially
[Mike Wilkerson]nowadays, depending on the feature sets and depending
[Mike Wilkerson]on the line of car, the the the,
[Mike Wilkerson]the different modes and different models and different
[Mike Wilkerson]things that you can have done to a
[Mike Dell]car. Mhmm.
[Mike Wilkerson]This was just getting down to brass tacks
[Mike Wilkerson]of which one do you want, pointing at
(10:01):
[Mike Wilkerson]it, here's the price, and here you go.
[Mike Wilkerson]Get out the door.
[Mike Dell]Yep. And and, you know, it was it
[Mike Dell]was a lot easier to buy a Saturn,
[Mike Dell]say, than a Buick or Good question. Yeah.
[Mike Dell]You know? It's, I I thought it was
[Mike Dell]kinda cool. You know, I I was a
[Mike Dell]little older than you when they came out,
[Mike Dell]and and, you know, I actually remember them,
(10:22):
[Mike Dell]you know, with wow. That's a weird dealership.
[Mike Dell]It's got you know? But, you know, there
[Mike Dell]was a literal crap ton of Saturn sold,
[Mike Dell]you know, from ninety to, you know, maybe
[Mike Dell]two thousand. They were doing really good. Mhmm.
[Mike Dell]And maybe a a little bit after that,
[Mike Dell]but, then they tried to diversify a bit.
(10:44):
[Mike Dell]You know? That was the that was the,
[Mike Dell]thing that I think was their downfall. The,
[Mike Dell]you know, they had a couple of good
[Mike Dell]models that they expanded. You know, they did
[Mike Dell]a wagon version. That went real well Mhmm.
[Mike Dell]Because it was just a Saturn with with
[Mike Dell]a wagon back on it.
[Mike Wilkerson]Right.
[Mike Dell]And then they did a little SUV. That
[Mike Dell]was a true Saturn. You know? It was,
(11:05):
[Mike Dell]you know, they
[Mike Wilkerson]It's also the one that I remember the
[Mike Wilkerson]most, I think, in In in ninety when,
[Mike Wilkerson]they originally started to launch stuff. It was
[Mike Wilkerson]my first year of college, and I remember
[Mike Wilkerson]one of my instructors having one. It was
[Mike Wilkerson]a green one. And the green that they
[Mike Wilkerson]selected, again, we'll have, pictures and links inside
[Mike Wilkerson]the show notes for this episode over at
(11:25):
[Mike Wilkerson]auto digital podcast dot com. The, the green
[Mike Wilkerson]that they had, it's a very interesting green
[Mike Wilkerson]because it's not a forest green. It's not
[Mike Wilkerson]a money green. It it's it it it
[Mike Wilkerson]is a color inside a crayon box, and
[Mike Wilkerson]that's how I would describe it as essentially
[Mike Wilkerson]green from a, a crayon box.
(11:47):
[Mike Dell]Yeah. It's a very I remember them being,
[Mike Dell]like, kind of a a dark green, like
[Mike Dell]a British racing green or something, but they
[Mike Dell]don't I I I think they had a
[Mike Dell]bright colored one too, you know, that was
[Mike Dell]Yeah.
[Mike Wilkerson]When again, it was one of my instructor's
[Mike Wilkerson]cars, and I I always knew whether, she
[Mike Wilkerson]was there or not. And it struck me.
[Mike Wilkerson]It's it's when I think of Saturn, there's
(12:08):
[Mike Wilkerson]two cars I think of. I think of
[Mike Wilkerson]this this, this black one that's at Target
[Mike Wilkerson]near my wife's work still today, this these
[Mike Wilkerson]many years later. Great shape, by the way.
[Mike Dell]Yeah.
[Mike Wilkerson]Well, you know, they don't rust. Yeah. Right.
[Mike Wilkerson]And then, and then this green one that
[Mike Wilkerson]my instructor in in, in college had. But
[Mike Wilkerson]both of those are the two that I
[Mike Wilkerson]think of instantly.
[Mike Dell]Yeah. Well, the biggest year they had was
(12:29):
[Mike Dell]nineteen ninety four. So they did almost three
[Mike Dell]hundred thousand cars in ninety four. So
[Mike Wilkerson]Yeah. Which is a lot of cars. I
[Mike Wilkerson]I I think a lot of people are
[Mike Wilkerson]under the impression that, you know, it's gonna
[Mike Wilkerson]be millions of cars and it matters. Especially
[Mike Wilkerson]back then, this was a ton of cars
[Mike Wilkerson]that that has a lot of vehicles that
(12:50):
[Mike Wilkerson]are riding the road.
[Mike Dell]Yeah. But, of course, in two thousand eight,
[Mike Dell]they, had a little problem.
[Mike Wilkerson]As did everyone. Right?
[Mike Dell]Yeah. So GM went bankrupt. And by that
[Mike Dell]time, they were a full subsidiary of GM
[Mike Dell]because that changed over the years. Mhmm. And,
[Mike Dell]anyway, so they decided they were gonna get
(13:10):
[Mike Dell]rid of some brands. So they got rid
[Mike Dell]of Pontiac. They got rid of, Hummer. They
[Mike Dell]got rid of Saturn. And I think they
[Mike Dell]got rid of oh, Saab. Because at that
[Mike Dell]time, GM had Saab. And, you know, it's
[Mike Dell]just like, poof, they're gone. We're either gonna
[Mike Dell]sell them or not, you know, or we're
[Mike Dell]gonna quit making them or whatever. I'm surprised
(13:31):
[Mike Dell]nobody picked up Pontiac. That would have been
[Mike Dell]a good brand for some other car company,
[Mike Dell]but, you know, they were all hurt at
[Mike Dell]that time.
[Mike Wilkerson]So I was surprised too. The other one
[Mike Wilkerson]that surprised me too, you'd mentioned Saab.
[Mike Dell]Mhmm.
[Mike Wilkerson]Man, I I had a girlfriend that drove
[Mike Wilkerson]a Saab, and I really or her dad.
[Mike Wilkerson]And I really enjoyed, the the driving of
(13:51):
[Mike Wilkerson]that car. Other than that car, I've never
[Mike Wilkerson]driven another one, but it had a unique
[Mike Wilkerson]look and, I really enjoyed the controls that
[Mike Wilkerson]were behind that that sub model.
[Mike Dell]Yeah. They, they they had a weird place
[Mike Dell]to put the key. Right. On some of
[Mike Dell]those. They were it was on the floor
[Mike Dell]between the front seats. You know?
[Mike Wilkerson]Yeah. Yeah. Again, very very interesting. It's a
(14:12):
[Mike Wilkerson]it's a piece of that spill from the,
[Mike Wilkerson]the, European mechanism set. And, again, I I
[Mike Wilkerson]really enjoyed it. It felt really cool.
[Mike Dell]Yeah. Well, Saab is still around in the
[Mike Dell]aircraft world. Right. And, in fact, they're making
[Mike Dell]the new, t seven Redhawk, which is to
(14:32):
[Mike Dell]replace the, jet trainers for the US Air
[Mike Dell]Force.
[Mike Wilkerson]Interesting.
[Mike Dell]Yeah. It's a Saab Saab and Boeing, I
[Mike Dell]think, are together on it, but, it's a
[Mike Dell]it's a single engine supersonic jet trainer, and
[Mike Dell]it's it's really cool looking. They're just now
[Mike Dell]getting them, you know, production on those. But,
[Mike Dell]anyway, for those that are familiar with Bob
(14:54):
[Mike Dell]today.
[Mike Wilkerson]Yeah. Yeah. For those that are familiar, Mike's
[Mike Wilkerson]got a tether into the Air Force. Do
[Mike Wilkerson]you not?
[Mike Dell]Yes. I'm an Air Force veteran and spent
[Mike Dell]better part of ten years, flying around the
[Mike Dell]world. So
[Mike Wilkerson]Yeah. Thank you for that. I totally appreciate
[Mike Wilkerson]your service. What what, what is the Redhawk
[Mike Wilkerson]going to be replacing? Do you know?
[Mike Dell]The t thirty eight.
(15:15):
[Mike Wilkerson]The t thirty eight. Man, Zach got a
[Mike Wilkerson]storied legend.
[Mike Dell]Oh, yeah. T thirty eight's been around since
[Mike Dell]the fifties, and, you know, they haven't changed
[Mike Dell]a hell of a lot.
[Mike Wilkerson]Right. Well, not only have they not changed
[Mike Wilkerson]a hell of a lot, there's, for those
[Mike Wilkerson]that aren't or I'm sorry. For those that
[Mike Wilkerson]aren't familiar with me, I have a giant
[Mike Wilkerson]interest inside of human space flight, and the
[Mike Wilkerson]t thirty eight is one of the Hallmark
(15:37):
[Mike Wilkerson]legend aircrafts, legacy aircraft Mhmm. Are used for
[Mike Wilkerson]human space flight slash astronaut training sets.
[Mike Dell]Yeah. And Yeah. All the pilots, that's what
[Mike Dell]they or all the astronauts fly around in
[Mike Dell]t thirty eights. That that'll probably stay for
[Mike Dell]a long time.
[Mike Wilkerson]Oh, I agree with that. But that's gonna
[Mike Wilkerson]be a very interesting paradigm. And frankly, I
(15:59):
[Mike Wilkerson]can't wait to see what the Red Hawk's
[Mike Wilkerson]gonna give us. That they're
[Mike Dell]transferring fuel efficiency, you know, more modern everything.
[Mike Dell]So, you know, we'll see. We'll see. But,
[Mike Dell]yeah, back to Saturn. You know, they one
[Mike Dell]of the problems with Saturn was later on
[Mike Dell]when GM took them over completely, they started
(16:22):
[Mike Dell]doing brand engineering. And, you know, they would
[Mike Dell]have Opel models be Saturns and Buick models
[Mike Dell]or, you know, they would share platforms like
[Mike Dell]the center set second generation Saturn Vue, which,
[Mike Dell]you know, is that SUV, that that car
[Mike Dell]completely switched to brand engineered over time. It
(16:47):
[Mike Dell]was, you know, it was just not such
[Mike Dell]a great thing, you know, for them, and
[Mike Dell]that's that's, I think, why they declined. They
[Mike Dell]they had a minivan that was based on
[Mike Dell]the Dustbuster minivans that GM had for a
[Mike Dell]while. And Yeah. And, you know, they had
[Mike Dell]a they had a little hot rod sports
[Mike Dell]car that's that is pretty cool. It's, I
(17:10):
[Mike Dell]forget what they call the Saturn one. Sky,
[Mike Dell]I think. But it was a little two
[Mike Dell]seat roadster, you know, and Buick, I think,
[Mike Dell]had one and or Pontiac had one. Mhmm.
[Mike Dell]And, one other brand had them, but they
[Mike Dell]were all the same car.
[Mike Wilkerson]I think the Pontiac version was was this
[Mike Wilkerson]was it the Solstice, I think?
(17:31):
[Mike Dell]Yeah. Could be. But, yeah, it was a
[Mike Dell]little two seat roadster, kinda looked like a
[Mike Dell]Miata. Yeah. But a little bigger. And, you
[Mike Dell]know, those are, you know, pretty collectible these
[Mike Dell]days. You know? There's quite a few of
[Mike Dell]them on the road, but the the Saturn
[Mike Dell]version, I think, sold the best out of
[Mike Dell]all of those.
[Mike Wilkerson]And I think it looked the best too.
[Mike Wilkerson]I'm not sure if it's because it got
[Mike Wilkerson]the, the attention span that it needed before
(17:52):
[Mike Wilkerson]before all hell fell down. But
[Mike Dell]Yeah.
[Mike Wilkerson]I I I thought it looked the best
[Mike Wilkerson]of the of the bunch too.
[Mike Dell]Yeah. One of the one of the things
[Mike Dell]was, you know, when GM decided to kill
[Mike Dell]him, they they, Roger Penske, you know, the
[Mike Dell]guys that he he has the the all
[Mike Dell]the truck company and the racing stuff. And
[Mike Dell]and, he attempted to buy it, but he
(18:13):
[Mike Dell]couldn't get enough, investors and, interest in continuing
[Mike Dell]Saturn. But that would have been interesting. You
[Mike Dell]know, it'd be a completely independent company if
[Mike Dell]Penske took it over.
[Mike Wilkerson]What a very interesting transition that would have
[Mike Wilkerson]been too. For those that aren't familiar with
[Mike Wilkerson]Penske, again, we'll have links inside the show
[Mike Wilkerson]notes to, not only Penske, but it's the,
[Mike Wilkerson]the legacy of pet of Penske. Penske is
(18:35):
[Mike Wilkerson]a very interesting company that has tethers into
[Mike Wilkerson]all kinds of other things that would foster
[Mike Wilkerson]along a car company. And Oh, yeah. For
[Mike Wilkerson]sure. That didn't happen is very, very interesting
[Mike Wilkerson]twist of events. If there was a if
[Mike Wilkerson]there was a what if universe, I would
[Mike Wilkerson]love to see what would have happened if
[Mike Wilkerson]Penske would have been able to latch on
[Mike Wilkerson]there.
[Mike Dell]Yeah. They did, bring back Hummer, sort of.
(18:58):
[Mike Dell]They, brought it back as a GMC model,
[Mike Dell]for, you know, all electric. And, you know,
[Mike Dell]if you got a hundred and fifty thousand
[Mike Dell]dollars laying around, you can have an electric
[Mike Dell]pickup that, won't do everything you want it
[Mike Dell]to do.
[Mike Wilkerson]Yeah. Yeah. I've I've been watching the, the
[Mike Wilkerson]releases of that along with all of the
[Mike Wilkerson]other electric stuff that's been coming out. We'll
[Mike Wilkerson]we'll include some of that inside the show
(19:18):
[Mike Wilkerson]notes. Now there's a couple of videos in
[Mike Wilkerson]particular about the electric hummers that have come
[Mike Wilkerson]out that, I I find really endearing because,
[Mike Wilkerson]in addition to showcasing a lot of the
[Mike Wilkerson]benefits of what's going on inside of the
[Mike Wilkerson]EV set, but also for the HUMMER EV
[Mike Wilkerson]set, what you're also seeing are some very
[Mike Wilkerson]credible showcased reflections of why they may not
(19:39):
[Mike Wilkerson]be the next evolutionary step of vehicles even
[Mike Wilkerson]though that's what they're claiming to be. Right.
[Mike Wilkerson]I I always enjoy the the videos that
[Mike Wilkerson]are put out that give you at least
[Mike Wilkerson]a flip side of the coin beyond just
[Mike Wilkerson]the wow EV, this is the future. Then
[Mike Wilkerson]they'll also give you some other stuff. So
[Mike Wilkerson]we'll we'll link up to those inside the
[Mike Wilkerson]show notes as well.
(20:00):
[Mike Dell]Yep. For sure. So but, yeah, with with
[Mike Dell]Saturn, it just, you know, it just didn't
[Mike Dell]work, and I think it was because GM
[Mike Dell]took them over.
[Mike Wilkerson]No. There's no question. I mean, it's it's
[Mike Wilkerson]why, before I had I'd remarked about how
[Mike Wilkerson]you just don't see this anymore, and there's
[Mike Wilkerson]a grand reason why. It's mostly because people
(20:21):
[Mike Wilkerson]that have this much money and this much
[Mike Wilkerson]into a game do not like to splinter
[Mike Wilkerson]off the game.
[Mike Dell]Yeah. You know, Toyota didn't do so well
[Mike Dell]with their little offshoot there for a while.
[Mike Dell]I what was that called? I forget. You
[Mike Dell]know, of course, Lexus, they're doing alright. But,
[Mike Dell]what was the other the low low market
(20:42):
[Mike Dell]brand they had for a while? I can't
[Mike Dell]remember it now. But, anyway, they they they
[Mike Dell]had they did that and, and, you know,
[Mike Dell]just people weren't interested in it. They want
[Mike Dell]a Toyota or Lexus. You know? And, you
[Mike Dell]know, GM, I mean, they they make a
[Mike Dell]lot of good cars, and they, like, make
[Mike Dell]a lot of crappy cars. Right. Just like
(21:03):
[Mike Dell]any company. You know? There's certain cars that
[Mike Dell]are just duds and and you know? But
[Mike Dell]Saturn, Intel, GM took them over, and they
[Mike Dell]started brand engineering. Really didn't have any duds.
[Mike Dell]You know, they didn't have anything, you know,
[Mike Dell]crazy going on. They didn't have huge recalls.
[Mike Dell]Nothing like that. It was, you know, they
[Mike Dell]were just good, solid, simple cars.
(21:23):
[Mike Wilkerson]Well, I think they still are. Again, they
[Mike Wilkerson]go to the indicator of that one that's
[Mike Wilkerson]in front of my wife's target every single
[Mike Wilkerson]day. I also the the, the driver of
[Mike Wilkerson]that car is also wheelchair bound. And, it
[Mike Wilkerson]it's a smaller car, but it does exactly
[Mike Wilkerson]what she needs to every single day of
[Mike Wilkerson]the year. And, again, it's
[Mike Dell]Is that a coupe?
(21:43):
[Mike Wilkerson]It is. Yeah. Mhmm.
[Mike Dell]Yeah. Because it's got the big doors on
[Mike Dell]it. That probably helps a lot. Yeah. Yeah.
[Mike Dell]And you can slide stuff in the back
[Mike Dell]seat. Some of them had suicide doors on
[Mike Dell]the back of the coupe. Yeah. Yeah. Little
[Mike Dell]half doors kinda like you'd find on an
[Mike Dell]extra cab pickup or something. And, you know,
[Mike Dell]that that would lend itself well to, you
[Mike Dell]know, folding, loading a wheelchair in. So, yeah,
(22:05):
[Mike Dell]probably pretty practical for that Yeah. Application. Yeah.
[Mike Dell]So but, yeah, it, like I said, Saturn
[Mike Dell]was a cool car company, a cool idea
[Mike Dell]that, just over time didn't fit in with
[Mike Dell]the big corporate, entity such as GM. So
(22:26):
[Mike Dell]Yeah.
[Mike Wilkerson]You know, something else that we didn't talk
[Mike Wilkerson]about either at the front end of this
[Mike Wilkerson]was the the name. You know? Yeah. I
[Mike Wilkerson]I think a lot of people forget forget
[Mike Wilkerson]that names really do matter.
[Mike Dell]Yes.
[Mike Wilkerson]And, we we can especially inside of cars,
[Mike Wilkerson]especially inside of car models.
[Mike Dell]You can
[Mike Wilkerson]go back. In fact, we we should probably
[Mike Wilkerson]cobble together an episode of, the the cars
(22:47):
[Mike Wilkerson]that have the goofiest names that are still
[Mike Wilkerson]somehow popular, something like that.
[Mike Dell]Yeah.
[Mike Wilkerson]But but, Saturn is another great sample of
[Mike Wilkerson]a company that went, literally outside the box,
[Mike Wilkerson]moving its elbows around trying to make elbow
[Mike Wilkerson]room, but then named it something really familiar
[Mike Wilkerson]to people. And what I what I will
[Mike Wilkerson]definitely do is I'll go and I'll find
(23:08):
[Mike Wilkerson]more about the the origin point of the
[Mike Wilkerson]actual name being conjured and connected.
[Mike Dell]You know, a lot of people think it's
[Mike Dell]named after the planet.
[Mike Wilkerson]Right.
[Mike Dell]Saturn. It's not. Right. Right. It's named after
[Mike Dell]the, NASA rocket Saturn rockets.
[Mike Wilkerson]Right. Right. Which is another piece of endearment
[Mike Wilkerson]here that I'm absolutely certain nobody knows. What
(23:29):
[Mike Wilkerson]Mike is referring to is the Saturn five
[Mike Wilkerson]rocket, which is what originally took us to
[Mike Wilkerson]the moon, which Yeah. Again, it's why human
[Mike Wilkerson]spaceflight is so endearing to me. The concept
[Mike Wilkerson]of all of those hundreds of thousands of
[Mike Wilkerson]people coming together to get three dudes to
[Mike Wilkerson]the moon across the different missions. Man, I
[Mike Wilkerson]I it it it makes me it makes
[Mike Wilkerson]me bubble with energy right now as I
(23:51):
[Mike Wilkerson]say the words. And it's something that I
[Mike Wilkerson]know I always try to, foster and aspire
[Mike Wilkerson]to when I jump into projects because that,
[Mike Wilkerson]that that teamwork and that that spirit of
[Mike Wilkerson]that there's something else that I know we
[Mike Wilkerson]can all get to, so let's go get
[Mike Wilkerson]there. I really admire that about that time
[Mike Wilkerson]and that this is a piece of that
[Mike Wilkerson]legacy is even more special.
(24:11):
[Mike Dell]Yeah. For sure. You know, I'm aging myself,
[Mike Dell]but I remember the the first moon landing
[Mike Dell]on TV.
[Mike Wilkerson]I I the only reason I remember it
[Mike Wilkerson]is because, it's where, it likely was I
[Mike Wilkerson]was concepted. So how about them apples?
[Mike Dell]There you go. Yeah. I I remember we
[Mike Dell]had an old, old black and white TV,
(24:33):
[Mike Dell]and we watched the moon landing and Walter
[Mike Dell]Cronkite. Yeah. It was back in the day.
[Mike Dell]So, anyway, reminiscing. That's what history's all about.
[Mike Wilkerson]Yeah. Yeah. We'll we'll have copious links inside
[Mike Wilkerson]the show notes to all kinds of cool
[Mike Wilkerson]moon landing stuff.
[Mike Dell]There you go. There you go. For sure.
[Mike Dell]So I I think we covered Saturn. If
[Mike Dell]you have any, questions, comments, whatever, you can,
(24:56):
[Mike Dell]of course, get a hold of us over
[Mike Dell]at auto history podcast dot com. By the
[Mike Dell]way, the the last Saturn was, was done
[Mike Dell]in or was built in October of twenty
[Mike Dell]ten. So they did last a little past
[Mike Dell]the, GM bankruptcy. So, you know, gotta get
[Mike Dell]the
[Mike Wilkerson]date set up. Amazing that a company that
(25:16):
[Mike Wilkerson]started that's that small can somehow eke out
[Mike Wilkerson]an existence longer and larger than GM was
[Mike Wilkerson]able to to excise themselves through.
[Mike Dell]Man,
[Mike Wilkerson]that is just, isn't that the cherry on
[Mike Wilkerson]top of this story, Mike?
[Mike Dell]Yes. For sure. So, catch us next week
[Mike Dell]or next two weeks. We're gonna do this
(25:36):
[Mike Dell]twice a month for now. We may up
[Mike Dell]this, but, next week we're gonna talk or
[Mike Dell]next episode. Geez. I gotta get that right.
[Mike Dell]We're gonna be talking about, Mopar muscle cars.
[Mike Dell]That's kinda right in your wheelhouse, Mike.
[Mike Wilkerson]Very exciting time. I can't wait to do
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