Oh my gosh -- a trip down memory lane. Lessee here ........

'49 Ford 2dr coupe
'56 Ford business coupe (no rear seat)
'63 Ford Galaxie 500 (city trash truck rolled over on it while parked)
'66 Ford Galaxie
'76 Honda Civic Hatchback
'82 Honda 4dr
'83 Ford Falcon Wagon (my daily beater - wife got the Honda)
'93 Saturn SW2 (still got this one -- my duty spare)
'94 Saturn SL2 (wife's car till some lout punted her through an intersection)
'02 Saturn L200 (wife's car for a time, but it's mine now)
'09 Saturn AuraXE (wife's car - of course)

Where do I do from here? Frankly, I dunno.

 

I drove another representative of a $25K new coupe yesterday. Twin cam V6, chain drive cam, 6 speed automatic with paddle shift if you want it, 4 wheel independant suspenstion. A nice car, lots of well thought out features, as a lot of them have. I get a kick out of the >new< concept of key usage. I could not help thinking of a MOPAR as it was advertisement back in the day
Suddenly it is 1960, when advertising the 1959 Plymouth.
Looking at how the key was dealt with I kept thinking;
Suddenly it is 1937
What is next? Late 40's GM where you could remove the key once the ignition was off lock and put it in your pocket? Sounds like a deal to me!
No, my 16 year old Saturn does not reflect the automotive technology that exists today, and rather than having an over 200 hp 3.5 L V6 it really could use another 15 hp but I don't really realise it until cruise control kicks out pulling 7% grades that I can see in this area.
Todays $25,000 coupes are certainly nice, no doubt about it. But going through my Saturn got the cosmetics up to snuff and it runs and drives happily and the new ones as nice as they are, are not $25,000 nicer. Don't know where I will go next. Probably wait awhile and see what my life is. When my Van gets tired and if I don't need another I like the new Caddy coupe a lot, but it is a deep pockets car.
I don't really need the Saturn right now, it is just nice to have a sharp paid for economical to drive alternative sitting in the drive way.
Oh Well, if Detroit keeps going the way they are, maybe I won't have to worry about it. I can just go down to the Generic Car group and purchase a new puce Forgetable and have it towed home.

 

OceanArcher, the SW2's were always a favorite wagon of mine.
And just the other day I wound up side by side to a Volkswagen Jetta wagon that had the same general theme to it. Very nice. I think if I ever go import, it will be German.

As far as Saturn goes, I think the writing was on the wall when they pulled the plastic body panels from production.
That led to them being able to rebadge anything they wanted, and call it a Saturn.

But i've been checking out the Vue's more and more lately, and I really like the idea of finding a mint '06 with the Acura V6 in it.
I understand the manual is the way to go on those, right?

 

The question has been brought up, will a Saturn ever be a collector car? I dunno, I kinda doubt it my self. 1. They have not been around too long and 2. The original Saturn was pretty much a separate entity, built by and for Saturn to be sold hopefully to a market clientele that apparently did not materialize. The remaining years were part of the GM corporate generic car offering where a whole bunch of ill conceived sizes not only confused the buying public, but with nothing apparently to offer other than air bag locations and a badge with different spelling. If it sounds as if I have little use for GM's offering during those times, an interval that decided that what I was willing to plunk money down on was a 4 door, you are right. They were not the only manufacturer to do so, thus they were not alone but going out of business was not unique to GM.
It seemed that the market that GM and the rest of Detroit was shooting for shifted to off shore manufacturers but GM and others could not resist shooting themselves in the foot. As far as me and Saturn goes, when some one decided I wanted a coupe with more than 2 doors, I stopped buying Saturn’s and spent my car money on restoring some AMC cars to my satisfaction.
I can not help but to look back to the S cars though. Despite trade publications to the contrary that panned the early Saturn for excessive noise when driven hard and a number of other things of which I never really understood the reason for, but that one I remember. I looked at the Saturn early in the 1990's when needing a reliable car to drive on service work. The wagon or a coupe with the flip down rear seats made a lot of sense. People I talked to on the street at the time had mucho miles on them with complete satisfaction. Something hard to find from service people who beat the hell out thier cars.
I did not buy one at the time because I could buy and Eagle Summit Wagon new for 2/3 the price of a Saturn and it was a baby van that turned out to be a good buy. My Saturn, a 94 coupe came as a used car in 96. At that time Saturn’s were being campaigned heavily in scca small sedan races. I think they were a bit heavy in there class, but seemed to be doing well. The dealer bent over backwards to treat you as a customer instead of a conquest. And the car was friendly and fun to drive.
As time passed why did I not trade it? Good question. First of all I wanted another coupe, one that did not have more than 2 doors. As that was not an option, and I liked the car it was kept. When it got tired, needed some work and was not worth much, why did I not get rid of it. I liked it, it was paid for and fixed it was a nice car and I had room to park it in the driveway. Besides it was not worth much. I could not see getting chump change for a non-chump car.
3 years later when I spent about $1500.00 and more than a few hours going through what needed to be gone through, why? Good gas mileage, when fixed it wasn't broken, I liked it, I wanted a coupe, I had one, the problematic sun roof that I enjoyed, was fixed again, and despite all the early press that indicated that it wasn't a fun car to drive, with the selectable shift option and the twin cam motor with out flat spots was fun to drive, I liked it and it now looked almost better than when it was bought. I always though it needed another 15 hp to be perfect but that gets around to will it be collectable again. I still don't know. But on this forum, it is the model that gets all the questions asked about them so some where some one is still driving them for some reason, so maybe I am wrong!
It must be close to the time where some reproduction people start looking at high maintainence items for repair parts that actually fit and work.