So....Penske is expected to announce the closure of the Saturn deal on Thursday and there's one key piece that won't becoming back.

A part of the "old GM" (you know - the one that failed) Jill Lajdziak will not be a part of Saturn any longer.

Penske doesn't want her and she's asked for an early retirement package from GM to leave the company.

Bye, Jill. You didn't do much when you had the chance to run a truly different car company at GM.......your results speak for themselves.

 

Did you apply for the job?

 

 

They told me I was over qualified.

 

How long did she run Saturn? Seems to me she was there when some of the good products actually came out.

Of course, I think even the early Saturns (OK, at least the gen II SL/SC/SW) were actually pretty cool little cars. They had some cheap bits, but they also had a lot of positives.

Anyway, I don't think she was running the show that far back. I thought she was around for the better products. Of course, like GM did with Olds, they let the brand wallow around for a while, then flood it with good product just in time to kill it.

Olds got the Aurora leading the charge, followed by the Intrigue, Alero, and Bravada. All were respectable to quite good products. Then, boom.

Saturn got underrated Ion (center IPs are apparently OK as long as you are a Scion), the Sky, Aura, Astra, '08 Vue, Outlook... then, boom. Not much time to let the new stuff sink in, really...

Anyway, I'm mainly asking, because I don't seem to remember her being around for the earlier stuff.

 

Penske probably wants one of his own at the helm and I can't blame him for it.

 

as head of the brand, she has nothing to do with engineering or quality or style of the products released under her tenure. her responsibility has to do with how the brand was marketed. at the local level, within the corporate structure, deciding what trims go where, what saturn consumers prioritize, apportioning budget dollars for marketing or product updates, determining the message for Saturn. i think she failed too. i'm an outsider and i may not know the restrictions and bumpers she was up against whenever she tried to push something through. there were moves that were made within the corp that helped move along all the events that happened this year, there were blunders from pontiac to saturn to chevy to everybody.

but Saturn's overall failure can be seen as GM running out of time and money. had they had more time and money, they're heavily flawed marketing and product approval and conception process could have soldiered on and eventually gained more consumer acceptance. as it was, with the good product they had, it's clear where the failures lie and it can be seen they are being fixed today.

 

Aiming for Fritz's gig?

 

I miss our little Ion Redline. It was a surprisingly capable little car.

 

^ion redlines are awesome.

 

Nope - I wouldn't be able to tell Lutz no.

Wait...I'd be a lot like Fritz right now!

I'd be the highest paid Government employee right now......So yea, maybe I am going for Fritz' gig!