I had an interesting conversation today with an old friend who has made his living in the automotive business for many years as an independent and a builder of custom cars.
A few years back he bought and resurrected a wrecking yard from bankruptcy. Part of which was piecing together used cars and then selling them or leasing with option to buy to local people while carrying the finances.
His favorite? The S series Saturns! Why? In his own words, they were easy to repair, ran almost forever and did not require and fancy or weird maintenance. The Wrecking Yard proved profitable and has long since been sold and he is maintaining his reputation as a reliable mechanic and a specialist for difficult problems along with re-establishing a reputation for cutting edge custom cars and restorations.
His most recent comment was interesting.
He is about ready to turn away Saturns from his shop.
The late model Saturns, those derived from Badge Engineering rather than designed and built in Tennessee but now represent the political correct euphuism of Corporate GM Platform Based such as designed by Opal, built by Daewoo from parts bins left over from other GM cars that did not sell either and then imported and attempted to be foisted on to the buying public as a GM vehicle are now needing repairs and as the dealers have disappeared and many of the owners now are unable to afford taking them to a supposed GM dealer that is supposed to be able to fix them, a situation that not too far back in the day was indeed a viable alternative to having your car affordably repaired by a dealer rather than a local mechanic.
He is unable to buy parts locally at all that will work on these cars.
But instead must order these things through a GM representative where they will now be shipped to a selected Saturn parts representative whose job is to distribute and receive parts from a world wide network of suppliers which takes a fair amount of time to even have important pieces show up in Arizona at all much less the U.S. and then if delivery is critical, drive 200 miles one way to pick them up.
Surprising enough, another brand that he is having the same problem with is Suzuki, apparently the trucks are built in Japan, but the cars are badge engineered from Korean manufacturers and are also difficult to purchase parts for too.
This has been coming for quite awhile and did not happen overnight. My brand new 1980 Dodge Aries, a Detroit car that made headlines when it was announced was driven so many miles so fast that it out distanced the infrastructure of replacement parts. When the starter went and I special ordered it. It came from Germany.
This was a car that was hyped as being built in Detroit by and for Americans. Except that while mine did have the 2.2 Chrysler designed 4 cylinder engine. The optional engine was a 2.4 or 2.6 liter Mitsubishi.
Go figure.
Dunno the answer I guess, but do find it fascinating that GM’s answer to making money was to create a car, badge it with all the different name brands and then close factories because there was no difference between the brands except the name and no one bought them.
Well duh!

 

Today I saw that badge engeered Suzuki. Designed by Opal and built by Daewoo in Korea and touted as a corporate GM Platform.
Back in the day, called propriatory parts. Engines from Lycombing, bodies from Budd and names assigned from corporate investors. Then they became badge engineered. I have no idea how many names Opals have been sold under and how many countries they have been sold in.
For Example!
But it was the in thing as Detroit shoved captive imports into the showrooms as Plymouths and Dodges, Fords and Chevies and many other American badge names assigned to cars that could be bought as Austins, Simcas, Toyotas, Fiats and Skodas. In the country of origin.
Now to claim some form of legitamcy to a car that at best can be described as a Mongrol.
They are referred to as Corporate Platforms.
Another cleverly disguised marketing term for a pile of cast off parts that did not work in the orginal configuration but rather that scrap'm, paint them a differnet color and sucker some one into buying one.
What a pile of crap.
And we made fun of Renaults, Fiats and Yugo's.
Never learned did we?
Except that an in house american design went **** up! Because why?
Other than GM could not figure out how to sell one.