Well, they made the Saturns bad enough in other ways that few owners found the plastic panels compelling. It won’t be too many years before we’re back to plastic, but they’ll be structural panels of carbon fiber reinforced resins. Then we can have nice dent-free cars again. I hope they’re nicer than the Saturns. Better looking, too.
My son used to call our Saturn the “Tupperware car”.
Apparently the plastic body panels didn’t fool anyone… except my ex. The whole thing was a gimmick and everyone saw through it. It’s too bad, because I actually thought the Saturn Sky/Pontiac Solstice was a cool car… figures they’d shut down both Saturn AND Pontiac.
I sure hope so. I think what could drive cars in that direction is being able to recycle cars made from some plastics…maybe even the other way around. There are lots of body parts that could be made from recycled material. I have a couple of boats made from composite material that is very environment friendly in construction. I would love to have a car made of this stuff. The manufacturer once claimed that the only hole in one of his boats that he had to repair was when it fell off a trailer and hit a cement bridge overpass At 65 mph. I have been very brand loyal to these boats and would be to cars made of the same material. One of these boats is over 25 years old and looks almost as good as new…if your eyesight is a little bad.
Saturn eventually moved away from the plastic panels and became badge engineered versions of other GM products.
Steel afterall is a recycled product. We may be driving what used to be a washing machine. Nothing against plastics and composites but one question is what happens when its life is done. Its not a simple matter necessarily to grind up plastics to use in the same product again.
As a kid when I worked in the foundry, I used to be amazed by the truck dumping old rusty cast iron into the the blast furnace. Then a couple hours later would be brand new wheels and parts ready to start the cycle all over again.
“Apparently the plastic body panels didn’t fool anyone”
I actually thought some of those early Saturns . . . the real ones . . . didn’t look half bad
Love them or hate them, the early Saturns didn’t look any other GM. They had their own style, which I considered a good thing
As far as being a gimmick, I think it was more than that. There have any number of cars . . . and trucks, apparently . . . over the years that have had body panels made of something other than stamped steel
I thing it’s a real shame that GM watered down the Saturn division. In the end, it was easy to justify getting rid of the division entirely.
For recycling steel and aluminum are better than plastic, fiberglass, or carbon fiber.
Steel is thee most recycled product. It is a HUGE business. By recycling steel we’ve reduced iron-ore mining by over 50%…and reduced waste by huge amounts. This is probably one of the greatest environment things we’ve done in the past 50 years.
Aluminum is another great recycled waste. I’ve taken the tour of the Budweiser plant in Merrimack NH several times. And one thing I remember is that they use 100% recycled aluminum for their beer cans…and nearly 100% recycled glass for their bottles.
Those plastic body panels on Saturns were a nice advantage for those who are prone to getting their cars dinged-up, and they were obviously immune to rust damage, but they gave the cars a…cheap…appearance.
How did they make the cars look cheap?
Because of the HUGE panel gaps that were necessitated by that plastic’s trait of expanding a lot in hot weather.
One of the things that people began to admire about Japanese cars was the fact that their panel gaps were much smaller (and more even/consistent) than the panel gaps on American cars. As the public became more and more used to seeing the precision look of very narrow panel gaps, the appearance of those old Saturns just became less appealing and…cheap.
@mountainbike
Although I opted not to buy a Saturn for unrelated reasons (mostly steering and handling), I didn’t think the dent resistant side panels were a gimmick. Almost every vehicle has some visible ding where a car door has hit it while it was parked, and if I could get this feature now, it would definitely be a selling point and a plus in my book.
Yeah, those small and consistent gaps between body panels make it easier to tell when a used car has been in a wreck and been repaired in a sloppy manner. It’s one of the first things I look for when I or someone I know considers buying a used car.
I’m going to go against the grain again . . .
I see plenty of those older Saturns in my area
And they don’t look any cheaper to me, versus an older Corolla, Civic, Cavalier, etc.
I wasn’t aware of any issue with the gap, until you guys mentioned it
To be fair, I’ve never owned one or worked on one, though.
I’ll say something else . . . and it’s positive
It seems that those older Saturns have far better paint than those other cars I mentioned
Sorry guys . . . I disagree. I don’t feel they look cheaper than the other cars. I think you’d have to actually be sitting in the car or visually studying the exterior to arrive at that conclusion
When I’m walking down the street, and there’s a row of parked cars . . . the older Saturn does NOT stand out as a cheap piece of garbage
Having owned one, I can testify that they’re less than stellar. They do maintain their looks, but be wary… what’s underneath the paint isn’t always as solid as the plastic panels make it look.
For the record, classic 'Vettes can have the same problem. The glass bodies look great forever, but anyone who’s into classic 'Vettes will tell you that it’s important to get it on a lift and look it over thoroughly. A pretty package can just as easily be a two year old fruitcake as a fresh new French pastry. Even classic 'Vettes are subject to the elements on the metal bits.
Plastics have big advantages in the form I’m familiar with for several reasons. First, the equipment need to preform the composites is much more readily available then a blast furnace and construction sites can be set up any where. Secondly, cored plastic composites with injected foam cores are very strong, resistant to denting, self supporting and would be exceptional performers in crashes. Lastly, with all these advantages, they are very light. One of the boats I have could easily have the enough plastic in it to make a compact car body and weighs just 400 lbs. it can stop a small arms bullet and is reparable by anyone with average skills to a new like finish when damaged down to the core. It is a thermal based material and cannot be used in conjunction with exhaust systems or the motor. Other then that, it will last a century with the right finish but can be broken down and reused to build really strong self supporting houses or anything else. Oh, it is extremely environmentally friendly in construction, use and recyclability. It would be an ideal EV body material. Plastics will excel then.
That’s all true, but car doors are a critical part of the crash protection system and energy absorption paths. Even hoods are. The Saturn actually had a significant metal structure underneath the plastic doors. When I bought mine, the dealers had a “cutaway” door on display showing the metal substructure to allay potential buyers’ fears. Traditional door shells probably had less metal.
Plastics are far less recyclable than steel or aluminum because of the many types out there, the various setting techniques (thermosetting vs. reaction-based) and the difficulty in separating any paint/color from the plastic. They react at very low temperatures, compared to metals, preventing easy purification. Can they be ground up and used to make low-tech items? Sure, that’s often the result of municipal recycling centers. They make recycling bins out of the undifferentiated plastic collected by the centers. Much less valuable than turning recycled steel and aluminum into new cars.
I have a co worker who’s wife daily drives a early saturn SL which the only time it might have looked bad is after the deer impact while they got around to making the replacement panels match the car. I don’t know which model but a friend just bought his mom’s Saturn since she’s not driving any more (one owner little old lady car) He plans to give his fiance his Mazda3 and drive the Saturn since they don’t plan to keep her Saab once it goes bang.
Matching paint on any aging car that’s seen some sun is extremely tricky. Pro shops use spectral scanners on the car’s existing paint, but even that isn’t perfect. One common technique is to “blend” the edges, a somewhat different approach to the old practice of painting to the panel edge in each direction. Even two different “lot” numbers of paint both blended at the factory aren’t perfectly matched. It’s common practice when doing large jobs to mix I amounts of the second “lot” of paint to the first “lot” in order to make the entire job as continuous in color as possible.
The plastic panels exacerbate the problem. The flex agent necessary to paint plastic panels affects the way the paint fades. Trying to match everything up after an accident repair is a serious challenge. The only way to really get it as perfect as possible is to repaint the entire vehicle, and expensive process if done right.
One thing many people don’t understand too is the effect that the primer color has on the final paint color. A white primer will produce a different final color that a dark primer, or even a surface with color. Prime a section of a red car with a white primer will produce a color variation. To get a really consistent final color requires priming everything with the same primer.
Saab = Sob story
Reminds me of the Graduate: One word, plastics. Its the future.
I kinda like metal myself. I wonder if the plastic panels expand and contract with the temperature and change the fit some?
That’s exactly it. The first Saturn Ion I saw close up had huge panel gaps.