Many Autopians look at badge engineering with the same disdain typically reserved for gaudy Indianapolis 500 pace car replicas or the 1-877 Cars For Kids jingle, but I can’t throw that blanket condemnation on the idea. The rather identical under the skin Firebird and Camaro each have their own personalities; early Mustangs and Cougars have distinct identities. The idea can work.
Of course, for every success there are several epic fails. The Subaru WRX-based “Saabaru” 9-2x was quirky and fun enough to display its Saab badge, but the Trailblazer-with-a-key-on-the-floor 9-7x was every bit the “we need a Saab SUV RIGHT NOW” phone-it-in that it appeared to be.
The brand Saturn started out as a clean-sheet-of-paper project that shared nothing with any other GM division. Thomas has written extensively about this, but the general story is that while the resulting Saturn S Series wasn’t a better car than Civics and Corollas, it was far better than contemporary Cavaliers. More importantly, the brand pioneered customer service and relationship building ideas like no-haggle pricing and owner’s “reunions” where 28,000 owners showed up in 1994 for a multi-day celebration (good luck finding you blue green SL1 without a plate number there, buddy).
Even the dealerships had unique “launch bays” to send the owner off with a cheer of “I SAY..I SAY..SATURN!!”. Here is hair-tucking “Julie” getting her new beige SL2:
Today, now-fiftysomething “Julie” has to go through the whole “what would it take you to get you to buy a car today?” shit when she goes to get her latest vehicle (and one of many reasons why fiftysomething me keeps cars for at least a decade to avoid that). Doesn’t that look like a magical place in the ad? Note how they don’t even show full views of the cars themselves in the ad because the car is secondary to the experience.
This launch ceremony was likely done thousands of times at this sad, now-abandoned suburban Chicago dealership:
Sadly, when it came time to expand the brand, Saturn had no choice but to offer reskinned and relabeled larger sedans, vans, and SUVs. Again, I’m actually not against such an idea, but only if this so-called “different kind of car company” actually offered different kinds of vehicles (at least the Saturn Sky was a rebadge of a fun and unique car). What if they DID offer such a unique machine? Maybe a convertible pickup truck?
It’s amazing how drop top pickups never caught on. Dodge offered a rare factory (well, ASC modified) convertible of the Dakota from 1989 to 1991, and it sold quite poorly.
During the “mini truck” boom of the early nineties, numerous firms offered kits to slice off your compact pickup’s roof and remount it (you kept the removed roof at home or dropped it in your bed).
Just the thing to go along with your custom spinning bed. No, this really was a thing. Get out your Vuarnet shades, teal parachute pants, and high top Reeboks:
The love-it-or-hate-it Chevy SSR was a retractable hardtop pickup, but it was really a “pickup” in profile only.
The “bed” was essentially a large, carpeted trunk, the front foot or two of which was taken up but the top mechanism:
Interestingly enough, someone actually tried to homebuild a Saturn pickup out of an old Vue. As our Thomas reported, the end result was shockingly appealing for something that we posted to ostensibly laugh at:
Our Saturn convertible truck needs to be unique compared to other GM brands, so we’ll start with a concept that the General showed but never produced- the Colorado SS concept. This custom version of the new-for-2004 S-10 replacement featured an LS2 V8 and automatic transmission from the ’05 Corvette making about 400 horsepower and 400 pound feet of torque, pretty heady figures for the day. Body modifications, 20 inch wheels, and a covered bed. It’s a two door with an extended cab with forward facing ‘jump’ seats (since you just CAN’T make a four door truck as cool as a “coupe”). It’s rather too bad that they didn’t proceed with this GMC Syclone-for-the-2000s.
The Saturn O/Zone Redline could take on a very Saturn-like nose to replace the signals-above-the-headlights face of the stock Colorado truck. Still, the drivetrain and cosmetic changes are secondary to the special roof mechanism.
Unlike the Chevy SSR, I want this to be a real, functional pickup truck with limited compromises. First, the ‘targa’ section electrically slides back over the extended cab area. This way you can get open air riding for all four passengers:
Next, the rear roof section can lower itself down over the extend cab area. This could be done by the key remote as well:
Once the rear section of the roof is lowered, the ‘targa’ section is level with the bed cover. This means that you can still put cargo under the collapsed roof, but the rear jump seats are no longer usable, rendering this a two seat full convertible. This idea was explored half a century ago when Lee Iacocca wanted to revitalize the idea of a ‘two seat’ Thunderbird. By the sixites, all T-Birds had back seats, so a fiberglass cover was offered as an option to temporarily block off the rear passenger compartment for a ‘sporty’ look:
Within around sixty seconds, the whole thing can be returned to its original closed state, and at no time does it affect the covered (or uncovered) bed.
The O/Zone truck would be a way that Saturn could offer a car vehicle shared with other brands, but unique enough to fit the ‘Different Kind Of Car’ theme. I do seriously doubt that ‘Julie’ would want a dark purple 400 horsepower truck with a roof that opens from the key fob, but if she did the launch bay at her freindly Saturn dealership could provide it.
A Pickup That Turns Into An SUV Via Your Phone: Our Daydreaming Designer Imagines How – The Autopian
This looks awesome, but there is a flaw, and it’s a fatal one: The roof needs to be as wide as the top of the body to drop into place like that. And that happening is rare indeed, even on really boxy vehicles. Most car greenhouses narrow as they move towards their roofs (rooves?). I suspect this Saturn would be the same.
Otherwise, someone needs to build one of these. I nominate someone other than me.
“Most car greenhouses narrow as they move towards their roofs…”
The fancy term for this, borrowed from naval architecture, is tumblehome.
Rollin Hand- indeed, it would not appear as neat as I have shown. And I really don’t want to add complexity of some filler panels that pop up or some such thing. Good catch!
I can’t believe how much I want this.
A cool idea torpedoed by the roadster pickup last being successful in the early 1930s. I love the idea of Saturn as the skunk works division but I feel like true innovation would have been a Citroën XM clone with the Honda V6 out of the Vue Redline.
GM did ultimately make a v8 Colorado. Starting in 2009 you could get a 300 hp 5.3
Shut up and take my money, Saturn! Oh, wait…
This looks like exactly what I would want. I could still throw a couple passengers in the back seats for short trips, unlike the SSR. I have always kind of wanted an SSR, but never enough to deal with its various shortcomings. You get the utility of a large-trunked roadster with the efficiency of a full-size pickup.
yes please!
As my mom would say, “You ain’t right.”
…I like that about you, Bishop.
cuzn ed- I’m not right in any sense of the word as far as I can tell.
A Saturn with 400 hp — what could go wrong?
I’ll have to send this to the former gf responsible for me becoming familiar with Saturns as she liked the idea of the Baja.
The render looks good, Bishop. And, personally, I think the concept is sound.
TOSSABL- if you think a purple rear drive truck with 400hp is a ‘sound concept’ you have found the right website, my friend.
It’s not terrible. Even as a hard-top, I would drive this thing.
Another winner for The Bishop. Just wish car companies were still willing to offer more uncommon designs for those of us on the fringes.
I bet the convertible Dodge Dakota commands higher prices today than other contemporary Dakotas.
I don’t know if I trust early 2000s GM with all the moving parts to make that convertible work.
What do you mean, the Pontiac G6 hardtop converti–oh…
“VUE” would actually be an appropriate name for the convertible…
Given the timing of the Colorado + Saturn’s lineup changes, if Saturn were to offer a non-polymer-paneled, shared truck, I think the nose would have been less like the 2002-05 VUE. By 2004, Saturn’s design language was moving away from the the look with no grille between the headlights – the original Sky concept and the Curve concepts sort of signaled it (although those were more Seat-like). We’ll ignore the Relay just like GM preferred us to do, but maybe something more like the Outlook front.
Knowing GM it would have had the Colorado’s lights still, but perhaps they’d let Saturn be different and borrow from the global variants like the original Isuzu D-Max.
I was going to make different lights with a possible (non functional) taillight band across the top of the tailgate but I got lazy in got late.
If they stamped the Saturn brand name in the tailgate like they did the rear bumpers, they’d have been ahead of that trend in pickups today too.
Your convertible Saturn pickup looks great Bishop! Just like that Vue someone took a Sawzall to. Something about the gently rounded and unassuming snoot of those Saturns lends itself to a lot of different looks.
I bet Julie’s still cute, even all these years later. 😉
Scott- she’s certainly the kind of girl your mom would like, right?
“I saw that Bev’s daughter Julie got one of those new Saturns. That Julie is such a lovely girl…what…what do you think of her?”
Julie started a multinational injection moulding business that made, among other esoteric items, both OEM and aftermarket wine bottle glovebox inserts. The long hours led to a crippling addiction to freebase cocaine, and Julie was eventually arrested for manufacturing nearly invisible drug smuggling compartments for GM vehicles. She picked GM due to its extensive badge engineering, which cut down her R&D and quality control time by 70%. Her suppliers and runners loved this as they were able to use a wide variety of different, interchangeable, and mostly anonymous vehicles for their smuggling activities. She used her Saturn as a test bed, and her frequent trips across the border tipped off the feds, who soon raided the third factory she had recently opened in rural New Mexico with some state and local incentives for job creation.
After serving a 13-year sentence, Julie is now a motivational speaker earning 6 figures per TED talk about entrepreneurship, addiction, and running import/export businesses. She remembers where she comes from and drives a beige Aztek.
I promise I’ll go back and read the article, but I have to jump down here to say it’s Kars not Cars.
K
A
R
S
KARS for kids
Anyways, carry on.
That’s what I was about to do. I was also going to curse him for getting it stuck in my head for the rest of the day.
I still have ABBA’s greatest hits lodged in my brain from a viewing of Mama Mia last week, and I will not have you dislodging them with this filth.
There is no jingle that I loathe more than cars for kids. I REFUSE to spell cars with a K.
I also wonder why people think it is clever to replace a ‘c’ with a ‘k’ but never the reverse.
The only exception to this is when referring to a Kissel.
I’m open to another exception for Kookie.
What if you’re Scottish, is it OK to spell clan with a k?
Thomas- I’d only do it in the context of Kustom Kars
They are fraudsters at Kars for Kids. 29 years begging for donations and they have yet to give even ONE CAR to a kid!
(It’s actually a “charity” in New Jersey that supports kids going to a summer camp in the Catskills, and every now and then gives away coats and backpacks. They have processed over 40,000 car donations, and happily accept boats and real estate as well. Methinks they need a thorough audit.)
You misunderstood. K-A-R-S for Kids. Kids Ain’t Receivin’ Shit.