Surprisingly the wheel well liner is still in place, I wonder how far or how long this car may have driven around like this.įront door. The panels were just bolted on to the inner substructure, in this area not so different than most cars. The second million took another four years, not really generating an impressive angle on the growth charts.įrom front to back, let’s get a better look under the skin. They didn’t even get model badging, the SL1 had a body color panel between the tail lights (all gone here) and the SL2 had a wide reflector strip between them.ġ995 was the year that Saturn sold its one millionth car, surely there were many balloons and hot dogs at dealerships to commemorate the big event. It’s hard to see but the Saturn name is debossed into the bumper, saving GM the money for another badge back here. See, here’s the back bumper devoid of paint. It was not available on the more base SL model so that didn’t help the sales of that one either. The color here is Aquamarine, being a 1995 model, this is right when that was a most popular color. It’s one of the best things about the cars (in my opinion) and has aged pretty well. The logo was designed in 1987, five years after GM first studied creating a new small-car division and three years before the first ones rolled off the line in Spring Hill, Tennessee. We’ll look at the odometer in a bit so don’t get ahead of yourself with how these never broke 75k miles or whatever.
I’m sure someone was a service advisor and has some stories.
Two is always better than one so here’s a second shot worthy of another thousand words. The label has all kinds of facts and helpful information as to where stuff is, what the correct spec is, etc. It’s a little hard to see but that label on the front crossmember reminds the under that this isn’t an engine, but rather a Saturn Power Module. Maybe someone didn’t like the way it was peeling a bit.įor those not in the know about Saturns, the upper surfaces (hood, roof, trunklid) are still metal, so just as susceptible to hail, rust, and other damage as any other car.ġ995 saw a new version of the SOHC engine, still 1.9liters but now with and mainly due to replacing the Throttle Body Injection with Multi Port Fuel Injection. It’s plastic too and matches the rest of the body colorwise, the rear bumper conversely is just unpainted plastic on the SL1. I don’t know why the front bumper is still attached though. So something likely happened to them before the car got here. But later I realized that this car has its lot ID stickers on the rear panels, those are applied when the car wanders through the not so pearly gates and don’t get replaced even if the rear quarterpanel is removed. Or just wanted to change the color of their car. For 1995 (which was the last year of the initial generation) there were some changes made to all of the sedans as compared to the earlier ones which we can explore too.Īt first I thought the obvious, that obviously someone somewhere had been in an accident and needed a new set of panels. There was also a fancy SL2 that got a more powerful engine, some extra doo-dads and a higher but still no-haggle sticker price. No power steering either on the SL, but standard on the SL1. It is hard to shift while eating a double cheeseburger and slurping 44oz of something carbonated at the same time, hands have their priorities. automobile market, you will know that not offering an automatic means you don’t intend to sell very many cars. If you know anything at all about the U.S. There was also an SL (without the 1) but that was the total base price-leader model that is rarely seen due to not being available with an automatic transmission. But here we have one that somehow lost all of its plastic panels! I imagine the door eventually came to suspect what was about to come but stoically just sat there and took it. Besides blessing them with the largest panel gaps in the industry due to the growth and shrinkage of the material depending on temperature, they are also impervious to dents and dings, demonstrated at autoshows across the country in the early 1990s with a bowling ball on a rope that would be let loose on an unsuspecting door. Saturns (initially, anyway) had as one of their claims to fame their plastic body panels. But this one obviously grabbed me on a whole ‘nother level, as I thought my sunglasses had all of a sudden acquired a new superpower. Exceptions are made for old ones to see if I can beat the astounding 556,016 miles that were racked up on one I found last year and, well, that’s about it. Saturns are not rare in junkyards and generally I pass right by them.
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