April 3, 2009 - Kansas City Saturn Dealers, Kansas City MO

All Kansas City area Saturn dealers closing

Once touted as General Motors’ answer to top-selling imports, the troubled Saturn brand took another bleak turn Friday in the Kansas City area.

All Three Kansas City area Saturn dealers closing

Once touted as General Motors’ answer to top-selling imports, the troubled Saturn brand took another bleak turn Friday in the Kansas City area.

All three Saturn dealers are closing next week and are being converted into used car lots, further dimming hopes that GM can somehow salvage the nameplate launched more than 20 years ago in Tennessee. This move comes amid the worst auto slump in a quarter century, a slump that has cost thousands of autoworkers their jobs.

Wolfe Automotive Group will stop selling new Saturn vehicles at its Northland, Blue Springs and Olathe locations after Monday, said Sandy Belvedere, Saturn zone manager for the south-central region of the U.S.

About 100 employees work at the three dealerships. They will continue to be employed by Wolfe Automotive as the stores are converted into used car lots, Belvedere said.

Customers who have purchased new Saturns that are still under warranty from these locations will be able to get their vehicles serviced at any area GM dealership, Belvedere said. Saturn dealerships outside the metropolitan area will also service those cars.

Saturn sales have plunged in the past several months. After GM announced that it would either sell the Saturn division or discontinue the brand by 2012, sales have fallen nearly 60 percent.

Saturn has not been a profitable brand for GM since its inception in 1985, when it was dubbed a “different kind of car company” intended to compete with the high-quality small cars made in Japan and Germany. Its dealerships were notable for their “no-haggling” approach to selling.

“With President Obama telling GM it needs to restructure even more than it’s proposed, you’re really going to need capable and strong brands to make a go of it,” said Karl Brauer, editor in chief of Edmunds.com. “It’s hard to imagine the best car companies being profitable right now, such as Honda and Toyota. I don’t know what Saturn can do to turn around, especially in the current market.”

Jeffrey Wolfe, chief executive of Wolfe Automotive, told GM’s Saturn division that he could no longer continue selling Saturn vehicles given the severe economic downturn, according to Belvedere.

“Jeff’s been a great Saturn dealer for us for 15 years,” Belvedere said. “But we fully respect the right of every dealer to evaluate their own situation and make their own decision given the economic pressures they face.”

Wolfe, who runs the area’s biggest locally based network of dealerships, could not be reached for comment Friday.

GM will buy back the Saturn inventory, and the vehicles will then be resold to other Saturn dealers in the region.

Belvedere said the company will seek a new Saturn franchise owner in the Kansas City area. GM expects to announce a spinoff of the Saturn division later this month, and potential retailers have expressed interest in replacing Wolfe Automotive, she said. Belvedere declined to identify potential suitors.

“We’re optimistic about the future of Saturn,” she said. “Kansas City is a very important market for us, and we’ll continue to seek a new retailer for this market.”

Wolfe Automotive also operates a Saturn store in Springfield, Mo., employing about 25 people, according to Belvedere. That facility will also become a used car dealership and maintain its staff, she said.

Wolfe Automotive is the second big dealer to pull the plug on Saturn sales. Bergstrom Automotive in Wisconsin recently decided to close four its six Saturn stores in that state.

With the closings of Wolfe’s and Bergstrom’s dealerships, 386 Saturn dealerships remain, said Steve Janisse, a Saturn spokesman.

Saturn launched a new generation of vehicles earlier this decade in an effort to revive the brand. The Saturn Aura, made at the GM Fairfax plant and launched in 2006, even won a North American Car of the Year award.

The Aura is ending its production run at Fairfax as GM prepares to begin producing the 2010 Buick LaCrosse there next month.

“It was a case of too little, too late,” Brauer said. “Saturn finally started producing good cars, but that was only after a very long period of making mediocre cars. It’s really tough in the automotive industry to change a negative perception. It takes years of building quality cars.”

Wolfe Automotive’s decision marks the end of 19 years of Saturn stores operating in the Kansas City area. In 1995, Wolfe Automotive bought four area Saturn dealerships from Donald Haugland, operator of the Sonny Hill auto dealerships. At the time, the acquisition made Wolfe the second-biggest Saturn dealer in the country.

Wolfe Automotive was the 59th largest dealership in 2008, selling more than 9,700 new vehicles, according to a list compiled by Automotive News. The industry trade publication lists Wolfe as operating 12 dealerships.

The withdrawal of Saturn from the market comes about a month after Steve Oliver Mazda closed its doors amid the credit crunch and falling sales. In late December, Crossroads Chevrolet in Kearney shut down.

Original Story - KansasCity.com