K&R if you think GM should keep Saturn and Pontiac

[Alcibiades]

I've owned four Saturns, and have found them to be good cars. I got 150,000 miles out of my first one (an SL2), sold the second one (An L-series sedan) and currently have an Ion and a Vue. I've found them to be more reliable than the one Japanese car I owned (a Toyota I bought used). I didn't even realize how unique the Saturn buying experience was until, when I was looking for a small SUV, I went to the local Ford dealership and dealt with a slimy old dinosaur who was smarmy, sleazy, badgering and offensive. Instead of buying the Mercury Mountaineer I test drove, I went over to Saturn and got a Vue.

GM is considering getting rid of Saturn and Pontiac, mainly because they don't make trucks. This seems completely wrong, because one of the reasons they are getting their asses handed to them is because they focused solely on making the "more profitable" trucks and SUVs, and have really abandoned the family sedan. Now, with the G6, G8, Aura and Astra, Pontiac and Saturn have four
really interesting (though very different) products to offer average American consumers, but that apparently means little to executives. Moreover, the top two brands in resale value are--Pontiac and Saturn! The very brands they are considering dumping.

Senator Shelby, with whom I disagree completely on just about every aspect of the automaker bailout, nonetheless had one moment of clarity in this week's testimony, when he said that there was a certain irony that the last time GM tried to reinvent itself, it did so with the creation of the Saturn brand, and now it is trying to remake itself by dumping that very brand.

Anyway, here's a link to a story the NY Times did on Saturn a couple of days ago.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/04/business/04saturn.html?em

http://image.motortrend.com/f/car-news/saturn-reveals-pricing-for-2008-astra/6975844+w600+cr1+re0+ar1/2008-saturn-astra-xr-three-door.jpg