2002 Saturn L300: Sums Up Why GM Needed Saturn

If you’ve never heard of Saturn, here’s a quick run down. In the early 90’s, GM gave birth to a little side project intended to attract car buyers who hated buying cars. The sort of people who just need an appliance that gets them from A to B. No hassle, no fuss; just walk into the showroom, pick the car, color, and options, and sign on the bottom line please. A store where you simply walked in and drove out.

And it worked. They were so good that the rest of GM couldn’t even compete.

A few months ago I aquired one of the last of the breed, before Saturn became another badge engineered knockoff brand. A 2002 L300. And ever since then, Saturn became much more than just an automotive footnote to me.

I grew up around GM, my family has owned dozens of cars from the General Mistake stable. Hall of famers include a 1998 Pontiac Grand Am, a 2003 Pontiac Bonneville, 1994 Chevrolet Cavalier, and my personal favorite, 1978 Oldsmobile Delta 88. I’ve had the, erm, pleasure of experiencing most of GM’s product line from the late 90’s and early 2000’s; and some of those included the early Saturn line up. My idea of them used to be that they were very cheap, plastic bodied little cars that really never broke down thanks to the farm-yard engineering present in the Ecotec 4 bangers most of them came with. It was the kind of car you bought as a first car at 18 years old just to get around, a winter beater, a throw away car that you’d just patch up every now and then to keep it running for another month or so.

You don’t aspire to own one.

This car changed that opinion, because it doesn’t live up to that stereotype. It is so much better than what I thought they were capable of. I never thought that Saturn would even choose to offer a car quite as good as this. It borders on luxury, no hyperbole. On the outside you get that wonderful 90’s styling, very soft and curvy. Appealing to the eye in such a manner that it almost looks beautiful, even futuristic. On the inside, instead of a sea of drab gray plastic and buttons sneezed out all over the place; you get a simple, black leather trimmed cockpit with the majority of your controls right in the middle. Buttons are few and very well organized. The power seats and mirrors are heated. You get a 9 speaker sound system that includes a 6 disc CD changer. It’s very comfortable, and there’s plenty of space. Everything flows smoothly, no hard edges, no unsightly panel gaps. It’s very un-GM-like.

The drive is also quite interesting. The handling is responsive and the steering is precise and well weighted. That being said its limits show very quickly and it would much rather cruise at a steady pace. The engine is borrowed from Opel, a DOHC 3.0L 54 degree V6 making 182hp. It’s very smooth and revs quickly, and overall makes the car accelerate much quicker than you thought it could or should. Unfortunately the only transmission available was a 4 speed automatic slushbox. This means the engine doesn’t really get to showcase its true potential, being choked by a very tall gear set designed for fuel economy and highway cruising.

All in all, it sounds like a pretty standard car to the average person. Compare it to any other GM product from the same year however, and it seems almost too good for them. What it represents is something that could have saved GM long before they needed it. It’s well put together, it doesn’t feel cheap, real thinking went into the design, and if you found one in mint condition, you might even feel compelled to keep it that way.

It’s truly unfortunate that the sort of person that buys this kind of car is also the sort of person that doesn’t really take care of it; because when you drive a good one, you get the feeling that these cars, simple though they may be, were just a little more special. If GM didn’t ruin it, they could’ve been one of the best American car makers.