Monday, May 23, 2005
Saturn
What's ugly and made of plastic? Lots of things, from Michael Jackson to the new iMac, but the one I'm talking about has four wheels, is easily out-accelerated by its own rate of depreciation, and is a matter of deepest shame to be seen in or near if you're not dead. I'm talking about the Saturn, which is possibly the worst car in a miserable General Motors lineup that includes Chevy, Pontiac, Isuzu, Buick, Suzuki, and Daewoo.
Why anyone would buy a car that is not only pathetically underpowered but also contains more plastic than Lindsay Lohan's breasts is utterly beyond my capacity for reason. Even the limited sex appeal of a pair of plastic-filled breasts is completely missing from a Saturn, and now that I've written it I'm shocked and appalled that "Saturn" and "sex appeal" somehow ended up in the same sentence.
But— inexplicably— people do buy Saturns. Then they take them out on the road and drive, but... very... slowly. For some reason, the sexless freaks who buy Saturns can never even get them within hailing distance of the speed limit. I don't know if this is because the cars themselves can't go that fast or because the people driving them are sexless freaks. But it certainly seems to be true that every time you're in a hurry, one of these abysmal failures of automaking materializes right in front of you.
The worst feature of a Saturn (apart from the person in the driver's seat) is quite definitely the plastic body, which evidently one of the brilliant geniuses in GM's marketing division thought was a good idea. Probably words like "sexy," "space-age," "dent-resistant," and "revolutionary" were tossed around, though it's sad to think that anyone could have applied these words to a plastic car without being laughed out of the conference room.
This is because a plastic car is about as sexy as plastic genitalia, and unlike angry curses and one-finger salutes, sex is not something commonly bestowed upon Saturn drivers. Space-age? The eighty-year-old Spirit of St. Louis is more space-age than a Saturn, as well as being far more durable. In 100 years, when every last Saturn has crumbled into dust, that Ryan NYP will still be hanging right there in the National Air & Space Museum. And although it's true that the plastic body of a Saturn will resist denting, it won't resist cracking, puncturing, or other breakage, which is usually undesirable in a motor vehicle. As for revolutionary, anyone who remembers the godforsaken Pontiac Fiero will know that Saturn was by no means the first manufacturer stupid enough to try a plastic car.
The names of Saturn's cars say it all. Ion, Vue, Sky... three letters are sufficient to describe all of a Saturn's good points. It's true that ShitMobile or WhyCan'tThisFuckingCarGoAnyFaster? would be more appropriate model names, but one thing GM seems to understand is that you can't sell cars with names like that. This seems to be just about the only thing GM knows about selling cars, though, because any intelligent corporation would have discontinued the Saturn long ago, not to mention hunting down and smashing all the remaining examples.
In short, Saturns are terrible cars. This is not unusual, since most cars are terrible, especially the ones cobbled together by GM. But combine the miserable build quality, subpar performance, and lack of any redeeming qualities with a goddamn plastic body, and what you get is quite possibly the worst new car on the road.
Why anyone would buy a car that is not only pathetically underpowered but also contains more plastic than Lindsay Lohan's breasts is utterly beyond my capacity for reason. Even the limited sex appeal of a pair of plastic-filled breasts is completely missing from a Saturn, and now that I've written it I'm shocked and appalled that "Saturn" and "sex appeal" somehow ended up in the same sentence.
But— inexplicably— people do buy Saturns. Then they take them out on the road and drive, but... very... slowly. For some reason, the sexless freaks who buy Saturns can never even get them within hailing distance of the speed limit. I don't know if this is because the cars themselves can't go that fast or because the people driving them are sexless freaks. But it certainly seems to be true that every time you're in a hurry, one of these abysmal failures of automaking materializes right in front of you.
The worst feature of a Saturn (apart from the person in the driver's seat) is quite definitely the plastic body, which evidently one of the brilliant geniuses in GM's marketing division thought was a good idea. Probably words like "sexy," "space-age," "dent-resistant," and "revolutionary" were tossed around, though it's sad to think that anyone could have applied these words to a plastic car without being laughed out of the conference room.
This is because a plastic car is about as sexy as plastic genitalia, and unlike angry curses and one-finger salutes, sex is not something commonly bestowed upon Saturn drivers. Space-age? The eighty-year-old Spirit of St. Louis is more space-age than a Saturn, as well as being far more durable. In 100 years, when every last Saturn has crumbled into dust, that Ryan NYP will still be hanging right there in the National Air & Space Museum. And although it's true that the plastic body of a Saturn will resist denting, it won't resist cracking, puncturing, or other breakage, which is usually undesirable in a motor vehicle. As for revolutionary, anyone who remembers the godforsaken Pontiac Fiero will know that Saturn was by no means the first manufacturer stupid enough to try a plastic car.
The names of Saturn's cars say it all. Ion, Vue, Sky... three letters are sufficient to describe all of a Saturn's good points. It's true that ShitMobile or WhyCan'tThisFuckingCarGoAnyFaster? would be more appropriate model names, but one thing GM seems to understand is that you can't sell cars with names like that. This seems to be just about the only thing GM knows about selling cars, though, because any intelligent corporation would have discontinued the Saturn long ago, not to mention hunting down and smashing all the remaining examples.
In short, Saturns are terrible cars. This is not unusual, since most cars are terrible, especially the ones cobbled together by GM. But combine the miserable build quality, subpar performance, and lack of any redeeming qualities with a goddamn plastic body, and what you get is quite possibly the worst new car on the road.
# posted by Ben @ 7:23 PM 
