Saturn-Not just a car!

Early in 1993, I received an early morning phone call after working a 10 hour shift the night before. It was an extremely bouncy sounding lady named Sheryl. Because my plant was closing, I had applied to transfer to Saturn and here they were, calling me for an interview! After the initial greetings (and the "Hey my name is Sheryle" too!), I was invited for a three day expenses paid "interview" in Spring Hill, Tennessee.

By June 1, 1993, I had moved almost 600 miles and was now living in a motel in Columbia, Tennessee as I went through orientation at Saturn. Housing was extremely short at the time, the two small towns not knowing what to do with the influx of people! As it turned out, a great many of us who chose to not live in Nashville ended up living in a trailer park established just for us. That we were for the most part all Saturn employees became apparent at shift change. When A crew went in, C crew had just gotten off, and B crew was home at rest! You could tell be the traffic!

The fact that Saturn cars had become a "culture" never really sunk in until I bought my first red Saturn sports car. Flip up head lights, Corvette style and decent speed. I became a sensation when I returned to my small Michigan town for a visit. People stared at stop lights, pulled over to let me pass (so they could see the whole car) and approached me at the gas station. This was at a time that Saturn was selling every car it could produce, and was rare yet in Michigan. I've always owned GM cars; none brought me the attention as that first Saturn sports coupe.

And then there was Homecoming! Still a somewhat skeptical GM employee (17 years in the old world as we would say!), I was like "People are REALLY going to vacation here?" And, Yes they did! It was almost embarrassing! The visitor trains came through and cheered us. The line to exit the Interstate for Saturn lasted for miles. The crowds stuck in the muck after untimely rains, remained excited. Wow!

I still see occasionally a "classic" Saturn coupe, perhaps with a head light stuck up. I also had to leave Saturn in 2003 to transfer back to Michigan for family reasons. But for those of you that own a Saturn built between 1993 and 2003, I can tell you it was built with love, dedication and more than a little input from employees. We loved that car!

I was there when the last Saturn powertrain was produced for the Saturn car at Spring Hill. It was a very sad moment. I signed my name to that powertrain and had my pic taken with it. The people of Saturn, at the time, were the best that auto manufacturing had to offer.

Love your Saturn car of that era, because we truly did. And some of us wish we still had that red coupe with the flip up head lights!

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