Anyone who thinks that GM doesn't offer good cars doesn't know what they're talking about. The Chevy Malibu finished 2nd in a Motor Trend comparison test that included the Honda Accord and Toyota Camry. If you think the auto enthusiast magazine writers are pro-American made, you're sadly mistaken. Throw in the German (Opel) designed cars that Saturn has on their lot, and you've got lots of competitive products. The biggest problem GM and Ford face is that their capacity for producing smaller vehicles stateside is slim, and importing them from their European plants is costly because of the bad currency exchange. They should have been prepared for this inevitable change, but they weren't, primarily because of the need to placate shareholders.
GM and Ford need to move as quickly as possible to imitate what they've done in Europe.
On a related note, I sold my '94 Saturn to a friend's teenage daughter, and that car is still going strong, with 220,000 miles on it. Where I live, road salt has sent all the '94 Hondas and Toyotas to the junkyard.
It's too bad that Saturn was plastered with the 'geeky' characterization, when all they were trying to do was sell people a good, reliable, durable appliance.
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