GM Announces Saturn Pricing

Back in the day, there was a tiny little division of GM called Saturn. It's goal? Compete in the small car market with the imports which were wiping the floor with bow ties.

Losing

So, Saturn came along, and before it became a laughing stock, it actually made some really good cars for their time. It also had an interesting theory - a lot of car buyers, especially women, but mostly just because most men want to believe that a) they know about cars, b) they know how to negotiate a deal, and c) that paying $6,995 for the "Exclusive" package was a good deal and they didn't get talked into it by the sales guy, hate buying cars. 

Guess what Saturn was right. People flocked to the new brand, and they loved it. Saturn rallies were held, and even without topless tattooed women and excessive amounts of facial hair, they were more popular than Harley rallies. 

Winning

What killed Saturn? Oh yeah - the UAW. Because Saturn had this special agreement with the union that Saturn could do CRAZZZZY things like pay competitive wages and fire incompetent workers, the UAW made GM treat Saturn as a completely separate company more or less. Unable to ever build up the capital to really re-design its models, we got a decade and a half of the S-series. Regardless of GM's attempts to revive it (way too late), Saturn is now dead and gone. 

But it seems their pricing isn't. GM has had a revolutionary new idea: people don't like haggling over car prices. What was a major innovation in retail about 150 years ago is now coming back (for the second time...) to GM cars. 

From Autoblog:

"General Motors has good news for you if you're in the market to pick up a new Chevrolet. The automaker is now officially offering consumers its new "Chevy Confidence" program that allows buyers to return any model they've purchased within 30 or 60 days with less than 4,000 miles on the clock and no damage. GM calls it the "Love It Or Return It" program. In addition, GM has applied special pricing on all of its 2012 models on top of all current incentives under the banner of "Total Confidence Pricing." Each model carries a clearly-marked no-haggle price."

Dunno where they ever came up with that one... 

And finally, a moment of silence for the Sky Roadster - one of the prettiest cars which only briefly was: