Saturn Could Have Been a Contender

Lofty Promise of Saturn Plant Runs Into G.M.'s Fiscal Reality, by Jeremy W. Peters and Micheline Maynard,

The Saturn plant, like other efforts at G.M. to battle foreign competition, became a victim of the company's short attention span. At a critical time when the plant needed to grow, G.M instead poured money into sport utility vehicles and pickups, hoping to outwit the Japanese - only to see them invade those markets, too. And workers here are paying the price.

And I'd add, with unstable oil prices, they saw the demand for SUVs drop. What's sad, is even I can see that GM could really use a Saturn hybrid vehicle. Instead they're still hoping demand for SUVs will come back with a drop in oil prices.