Saturn’s Hometown as Saturn Calls it Quits
By Aaron Cooper,
CNN/StyleMagazine.com Newswire
The town that Saturn put on the map is worrying about it’s future and hoping it’s giant auto plant and jobs won’t go the way of it’s most famous product.
General Motors announced this week that it would close its Saturn line after its sale to Pensky Automotive Group fell through.
At the end of “Saturn Parkway” in Spring Hill, Tennessee, sits the huge plant where — as the ads touted — “a different kind of car company” produced a “different kind of car.”
The first Saturn, a red S-Series, rolled off the line in 1990. The factory, the town, and its workers have played a major role in the company’s image and advertisements, even hosting tours and “reunions” for Saturn car owners.
There is a community pride attached to Saturn. That first car is still at the factory — now on prominent display in the visitor’s center. In city hall, the walls are decorated with old photos of the small town Spring Hill was before Saturn came to town and what it’s grown into.
“I think people are very proud an American made car was made here” area resident Barbara Williams said.
Mayor Mike Dinwiddie credits a lot of that growth to the Saturn plant. “GM back in the mid 80′s is the reason this town began to grow in the first place” he said.
Eventually, however, GM decided to move production elsewhere. The last Saturn made in Tennessee rolled off the line in 2007. After retooling, GM started building the Chevrolet Traverse in Spring Hill, but that production is now on its way out too. In November it will be moved to a plant in Michigan, leaving Spring Hill’s plant idle.
The move to shut down Saturn has left some in town disappointed and perplexed.
“It’s been a great car” remarked Keith Slep who runs an auto repair shop a few miles from the factory. He had hoped Pensky would be able to make the car work because “he has a track record that won’t quit of being a great business man and a good leader. I don’t know what happened.”
Barbara Williams who was eating lunch in a Spring Hill park with her granddaughter said, “I’m like everyone else, how can this happen? GM has been a forerunner in the automobile industry, and it’s just a really sad indictment on what is happening.”
“We are kind of curious as to why the decisions have been made that have been made … I do know that what GM is trying to do now as a company, as far as how they are trying to operate and what they are saying the improvements they need to make almost mirror what Saturn was 20 years ago,” Dinwiddie said.
Resident Joyce Avello put the blame squarely on the federal government. “It’s an abomination what the government is doing to the automotive industry … Get it out of the government’s hands. They don’t know how to do cars. They can hardly do the government.”
As for the future of Spring Hill, Dinwiddie is optimistic.
“I have to believe the plant is going to come back. It all depends on the overall economy,” he said. “I hope that Americans start buying American products and start supporting the American auto manufacturing industry and if that happens we’ll get a product in this plant.”
Dinwiddie said he has been working with General Motors on a daily basis, and has invited the president and the auto recovery czar to come and tour the plant.
“I don’t think they understand what this plant is capable of doing and once they see that I think that they will be well aware of the situation and I think they could probably give us some help,” he said.
G.W. Bowman, at 94 years old, has lived in Spring Hill most of his life and remembers stories of his grandfather collecting the mail in the area during the Civil War.
With Saturn gone and the local plant preparing to idle he said, “of course its going to hurt, but its not going to kill Spring Hill … Spring Hill was here a long time before they came in.”
The-CNN-Wire/Atlanta
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