
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, July 31, 1990                   TAG: 9007310140
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: From wire reports
DATELINE: SPRING HILL, TENN.                                LENGTH: Medium

GM COY WITH SATURN'S DEBUT

A red four-door Saturn sedan piloted by retiring General Motors Chairman Roger Smith rolled off the assembly line Monday, ceremonially but secretly kicking off production of what's intended as a major change in U.S. auto making.

GM said Smith, who retires today as GM's chairman, drove and United Auto Workers union President Owen Bieber rode shotgun as "Job One" of the new GM model came off the line.

But after seven years of hype since the project was announced, the ceremony was closed to the news media. A photographer was barred from taking pictures of the entire vehicle, reporters were kept outside the plant gates and departing employees refused to answer questions. The company released one photo, showing four GM officials posed around the first Saturn off the line.

Richard G. `LeFauve, Saturn's president, said in a news release that the ceremony was private because of GM's plans to focus national attention on the car's launch this fall.

The project was envisioned as a way of using non-traditional production and management techniques to make cars that would compete with imports. Smith introduced it in 1983, saying the company planned to make 500,000 subcompact cars annually, each costing about $6,000 and getting 60 miles per gallon.

The final product actually has more interior room, a longer wheel base and more features. It now is aimed to compete with the Honda Civic and Toyota Corolla, with a $10,000 to $12,000 price tag and a smaller 35-mpg rating. Production estimates have been halved.

Saturn officials said they will begin shipping cars in the fall; they go on sale in October.

An industry analyst, Joseph Phillippi of Shearson Lehman Brothers Inc., said keeping the debut private might be an effort by GM to dim the glare of media attention on Saturn just a bit.

"What they're basically doing here is trying to lower expectations," he said. "The plant is something else . . . but the car leaves people a little flat."

After all the hype, said Phillippi, "this thing has either got to be the reincarnation of the success of the Honda Civic or Accord or it runs the risk of being branded a failure."

by CNB