Saturn Grows Up

Automotive Industries, July, 1999 by Gerry Kobe

The division that taught GM how to build profitable small cars, writes a new chapter on leveraging global resources. The mid-size L-series sedans and wagons are Opel-engineered but all Saturn.

In 1994, GM's Saturn Division found itself in a grow-or-die situation. Conceived nine years earlier as a"small-car company," the market was moving away from the division's lone product offering and GM management started wondering if it was time to fold Saturn back into the corporate mainstream. Trucks, minivans and SUVs were clearly the wave of the future, and midsize vehicles were trouncing small cars in sales volume and profits per-unit.

"Funding your growth on a single-segment, small-car portfolio is a tough thing to do in today's market," says Saturn chairman and president Cynthia Trudell. "In fact, long term it's impossible." In a bid to survive and simultaneously maintain Saturn's identity, product planners decided to enter the high-volume, mid-size sedan market dominated by Toyota Camry, Honda Accord and Ford Taunt. From a marketing standpoint, the move gives the division a logical step-up vehicle for two million loyal Saturn S-series owners. Additionally, it expands the universe of potential customers from the 17% represented by small car segment, to a healthy 41% of small- and midsize combined.

Saturn's logic was inescapable, but corporate GM wouldn't approve another all-new platform like it did with the original Saturn. Nor would it fund a greenfield site or expansion of the Spring Hill, Tenn., facility. This forced Saturn to scour Gm's global resources to find a platform, an engineering partner and a manufacturing site.

After briefly entertaining the idea of using the domestic P90 (Malibu) platform, the team partnered with Opel engineers at GM's massive ITDC tech center in Ruesselsheim Germany to rework the Vectra (J-car) into the next Saturn. It was then decided that the L-series would be built at Wilmington, Del., effectively saving that plant from death row.

Saturn was finally poised to begin work in earnest on the L-series. More importantly, it was about to create a blueprint for future GM global programs.

The Program

Concept approval for the L-series was given in November 18, 1994 -- four and a half years before Job One rolled off the line last month at Wilmington. Clays were frozen in September 1996. The program produced 114 prototypes, 66 mule cars, racked up 6.3 million equivalent customer test miles and cost an estimated $1.2 billion. Nearly half that cost went into preparing the plant to build the vehicles. Saturn's new L850 4-cylinder corporate engine is not charged against the program.

The new cars have 85% domestic content, with stampings coming from independent sources. The only stamped part from GM Metal Fab is the hood. Plastic panels are done at Spring Hill and shipped to Wilmington in batches. Build combinations including paint, trim, features, options and emission control are 60,000 for the sedan and 4,000 for the wagon.

Saturn's vehicle development team (VDT) approached the program in the same manner it did for the S-car. "The VDT has three key objectives in the development process," says Total Vehicle Integration Engineer Jeff Boyer. "We create vehicle specifications and performance parameters that satisfy Saturn customer needs, we work with suppliers and within GM to develop and validate systems and we oversee every aspect of the car to make sure it is a Saturn."

The logistics of integrating the Saturn development process into Opel was time consuming, and got the program off to a slow start. However, Chief Engineer Grant Carrithers says rumors of the Saturn team becoming disheartened and lobbying for an all-new platform are not true.

"Actually there was not a lot of time spent arguing a `ground-up' car," he notes. "But when we got into it, the reality was that the Vectra was really not a Saturn and we had to redesign a lot of things to meet our requirements. If we could have used more common parts than we did, we did, we would have. It wasn't an engineering free-for-all, but Opel engineers struggled with why we wanted to change proven designs."

"It was Opel's program," admits Allen Landosky, powertrain engineer for the Saturn development team. "Opel was the engineering contractor for the entire car. The VDT were advisors or integrators, so when you wanted a change you had to go back to your contractor, and make sure he understood it. Then he designed it, executed it and had to test it."

The combinations of language and cultural differences, business practices and consumer preferences sparked some unexpected confrontations during the L-series' development. Other GM divisions may have settled for badge engineering, but Saturn's program objectives drove its brand character into the product at all levels.

Spaceframe Or Unibody?

The body structure was one of the areas that was hoped to be kept as common as possible between the Vectra and L-cars, but it turned out to be a subject of heated debate. Opel engineers resisted when Saturn said it wanted a longer, wider, heavier car with different handling characteristics, additional crush space for safety, different corrosion requirements, plastic body panels and a design that could be processed on a Saturn manufacturing line. In other words, it wanted a new car.