Dismantling Of GM Continues: Penske Buys Saturn

[Conan71]

For those of you who don't have a clue who Roger Penske is, this is great news.  He'll show everyone the right way to run a car company.

"We are bringing together two icons: the Saturn brand and the Penske organization," said Jill Lajdziak, Saturn's general manager. "When completed, this deal will save more than 350 dealerships and over 13,000 jobs in the United States."

http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2009-06-05-Saturn-sale_N.htm?csp=34

There's no bad news to mine out of this story.  Penske is a class-act.

[cannon_fodder]

From what I heard he runs a tight ship, pays the employees at his dealerships well, but expects a lot from his employees.  The quote I heard was something along the lines of "if you are just looking for a job, you probably shouldn't work for me."  I can't vouch for the info, but that is what they were yamming about on the internets last night.

I hope it's true.  American can make great cars and provide people with good livings while we are at it.  It just hasn't happened for a while (Ford is working on it).

[RecycleMichael]

Years ago, my wife interviewed Roger Penske for a magazine article about innovations in car dealerships and service. I walked in on the phone conversation halfway through and heard her say, "thank you Mr Penske".

I was so excited that my wife had talked to the Roger Penske, my all-time favorite name from watching the Indianapolis 500. She thought he was just another car salesman.

[dbacks fan]

From what I have read, Penske is buying the rights to Saturn, http://money.cnn.com/2009/06/05/news/companies/saturn_penske/index.htm?postversion=2009060515, and when GM stops the actual manufacturing, Renault Samsung of Korea,http://www.renault.com/en/groupe/marques-du-groupe/Pages/renault-samsung-motors.aspx is the most likely candidate to take over. Knowing how good Penske has been for brokering deals and aquisitions like Hertz Truck Rental, and Detroit Diesel, and agreements between CART and IRL, he may have one of the best run atuo manufacturers in the US.

[nathanm]

he may have one of the best run atuo manufacturers in the US.

If all the production is done by offshore contract manufacturers, I don't think it counts as an auto manufacturer "in the US," or an auto manufacturer at all, for that matter. More like a marketer. More akin to Tesla than Ford.