GM Scatters Saturn Build

General Motors will spread the production of the next run of Saturn products throughout its vast production system — and it will continue to loosen the ties between the Saturn and the Spring Hill, Tennessee, complex that had served as the brand’s spiritual home for nearly two decades.

GM recently announced plans to invest between $400 million and $500 million in the Spring Hill assembly complex. The new investment, however, will be used to prepare the Spring Hill plant to build products for GM's other divisions, said GM spokesman Dan Flores. Spring Hill is still a key part of GM’s future production plans, he said.

GM built the Saturn plant in the late 1980s as a showcase for building a plant and a sales approach that could compete with rivals from Japan, which had made big inroads in the U.S. market in the first half of the 1980s. Saturn’s sales and dealer organization are still focused on bringing in buyers who might otherwise purchase an import model.

However, GM is spending money on re-tooling other plants to build products that will be sold through Saturn's highly praised dealer network. GM announced last week plans to spend $200 million to prepare its assembly plant in Fairfax, Kansas, to build a new mid-size car for the Saturn brand. The production of the new sedan, which is intended to replace the little-loved L-Series, is currently scheduled to begin in the second half of 2006 as a 2007 model, GM officials said. The money will be used to both expand the plant and upgrade machinery, equipment and special tooling required to building the new models. The Fairfax plant outside Kansas City, Missouri, and its 3000 employees now build the Chevy Malibu and Malibu Maxx.

"GM's investment is more than just an announcement about GM's commitment to strengthen and re-energize the Saturn nameplate," said Joe Spielman, GM vice president and general manager of Vehicle Manufacturing. “It also underscores GM's confidence in the plant's workforce,” he said.

Elsewhere in the empire…

GM has already prepared the company's plant in Doraville, Georgia, outside of Atlanta to build the new Saturn Relay, which is the reworked minivan GM is shipping to dealers this fall as a "sport van" that combines features from both vans and sport-utility vehicles.

Earlier this summer, GM also confirmed that it plans to build a rear-wheel-drive, two-seat Saturn at the company's assembly plant in Wilmington, Delaware, starting in 2006. By then, GM had already decided to suspend production of the Saturn L-Series at the Wilmington plant, which is currently being revamped so it can start production of the two-seat Pontiac Solstice next year.

GM sources also have confirmed Saturn will get one of the new crossovers that are being designed for production at the company's brand new assembly plant that's under construction in Delta Township outside of Lansing, Michigan. The new crossover should be ready to launch in 2006.

The new products are all part of the ongoing effort to re-energize the Saturn lineup. The effort comes not a moment too soon. Saturn sales are off 21 percent this year and GM plans to reduce production of the slow-selling Saturn ION by eliminating 400 jobs. Starting September 7th, IONs will be built by two work crews on two shifts instead of three crews operating on three shifts.

Meanwhile, GM is in the midst of a sweeping and expensive recall of more than 243,000 Saturn VUEs.

GM ordered the recall after the VUE faltered during the roll-over test supervised by the National Highway Safety Transportation Administration (NHTSA). While the VUE did not roll over during the test, the rear suspension was damaged when a wheel struck the pavement during the dynamic stability test known as the fishhook maneuver. The failure was widely publicized but so far the reports of the test results haven't hurt sales. Sales increased, year over year, in July and are up by nearly 17 percent through July, GM officials said. The VUE, however, only got a three-star rating from the NHTSA on its do-over test, according to the information released last week by the federal government.