Word: saturns
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...Saturn...
Remember your first car? A young woman talks about picking out hers (a Saturn) with her dad. Other Saturn owners recount horrific auto accidents, reporting that thanks to their rugged little cars, they emerged unscathed. Taken together, the ads describe a family car that is sturdy, affordable -- and . friendly to boot. When a teacher writes to the factory about her Saturn, the workers who made it gather round to sign a note to her. Message: This is a family worth joining...
...firm that grew so rich and powerful that it became oblivious to the signals of changing times. Despite the oil crises of the 1970s and the Japanese challenge of the '80s, GM never put its heart into developing smaller, high-quality cars. It took a new division, Saturn, to develop GM's first winning U.S. small car. "When you're on top of the heap, there's a disdain for change, a disdain for new ideas," says Lawrence Hrebiniak, a professor at the Wharton School. "It just goes with the territory, because...
...laboratory for organizational change at GM is supposed to be its built- from-scratch Saturn division, but so far the results have been mixed. Saturn's long and costly gestation -- it took seven years before the first model rolled out of its Tennessee factory -- drained $5 billion from other car projects and stirred anger and envy within GM ranks. And Saturn's special status as a stand-alone company within GM has created a snooty attitude on the part of its dealers toward the turmoil in Detroit. "Most of our customers don't know who makes the car," says...
...division has yet to make money for the company, in part because GM reportedly sells the car at a loss to build up its market share. All told, Saturn ran a deficit of $1 billion last year, according to U.A.W. estimates. But Saturn has in abundance what many of GM's other products so desperately need: prestige. The upstart division's high-quality products have proved so popular that customers have to put their names on waiting lists. If Saturn can translate its popularity into profits, the formula could help save the rest of the giant company...