Sir William Lyons, founder of Jaguar, once said: “It doesn’t cost any more to make something pretty.” The good people at Saturn Corporation did not share this perspective. Saturn was ultimately a big experiment in development and production efficiencies for the larger GM brand in hopes of competing with the Japanese manufacturers in the low-cost compact car segment. This all adds up to an extremely boring and reliable line of cars that generations of Baillargeons could get behind. And those unattractive stylings certainly contributed to their cost-effectiveness in the used market. If you were able to kill a Saturn, a replacement was easy to find, and people were (are) basically giving them away. It was hard not to go back for more. This was essentially how my experience with one particularly Sick 2001 SL began. We weren’t even in the market for a new Saturn (as is often the case for repeat Saturn owners) – this one found us. My dad saw it with a “for sale” sign off the highway on his commute to work. 93k, ran like shit, filthy interior, 700 bucks. Really not much to lose at that price. After a few hours under the hood and with the vacuum in the interior, it was in good shape and a fine replacement for my aging MK1 SL1. It felt a bit wrong to retire my perfectly functioning 93 SL1, but I wasn’t going to say no to a car with a hundred thousand fewer miles, a single-color exterior, functional airbags, and significantly less duct tape holding it together. It was also my first manual transmission. I started driving the 2001 SL in the spring of 2008. I had just finished school at UMD. Amanda and I got married that summer and we moved to St. Paul. While it was not fast, powerful, roomy, and hardly capable really, the car provided a helluva ride over the next 12 years. Most of the stories below took place in Utah – partly because this is where the Saturn did most of its living, but also because I didn’t have a phone with an actual camera prior to then.

On our trip moving to Utah in January the heater went from poor to non-functioning. We were in negative temps for the first half of the drive and Amanda was wearing a couple jackets and using another as a sleeping bag for most of the trip. Once we arrived, I tore apart the interior to remove the heater core and unclogged it in the bathtub to fix the issue. After a trip of that distance I also did an obligatory wheel bearing replacement. While Saturns are known for being generally low maintenance, wheel bearings are their Achilles heel. I think I replaced 5 of them in the front end of this Saturn during our time together. You had to remove the knuckle in order to press out the bearing and have a new one pressed in. By my fourth or fifth one of these I could do the whole process in under an hour.

One of the things I miss most about living in Ogden was the weekender potential in nearly every direction. The Saturn’s first weekender in Utah was a trip to Moab in March. I got pulled over for speeding on highway 6 in Price. The cop said I was going 68 in a 55 and Bailey, in the passenger seat, replied “No way. This car can’t go that fast.” I was issued a ticket regardless. Fruita (pictured) was another spring destination. In 2011 Travis and Jake met us there, and Travis attempted to ride the trails on his Specialized Demo. We camped with the demo crew at the Kokopelli trailhead, where one of the brands provided a keg of some kind of New Belgium wheat beer around the campfire. Between Travis’s additional exertion trying to pedal a DH bike all day and his affinity to indulge in free things, he may have gotten little too loose and at some point during the night vomited inside the tent vestibule. The next morning, he maintained that it was a perfectly acceptable place to ralph, as it wasn’t technically inside the tent.

Trip to Vernal with the Jeffs. The mountain biking wasn’t great, but it was a nice drive and excellent free-range car camping.

Beth and my parents came out for a visit in August and we did a trip through some of the National Parks (photo outside of Hurricane). 5 adults squished into a Saturn for a couple days in the desert summer and I’m pretty sure they wished they’d have gotten a rental car.

Lots of après with the Sick Saturn. A couple of camp chairs became a near permanent fixture in the trunk. This was at Grand Targhee.

Luxury interior

This was definitely one of those days Powder Mountain required chains on non AWD vehicles (I did not own chains). With good snow tires, there was only one time the Saturn was unable to make it up Pow Mow road, and if Tony hadn’t sat on the hood for traction this would have been a second. I was a crackhead for snow at the time, but in hindsight I do feel bad for endangering Tony’s life.

Tailgating with Foster and Tony on closing day at Pow Mow

Green Pond trailhead. This was Amanda’s and my go-to Sunday loop at Snow Basin until Sardine was cut.

The Saturn got an extra weekender to Moab one spring because Amanda was doing a Wilderness Medicine course. I convinced Jake to come with to do some mountain biking while she was in the class. He was a pretty inexperienced mountain biker at the time and I grabbed him a first gen Horsethief from the Q-West demo fleet for the weekend. I took Jake on Captain Ahab as our first ride, a somewhat cruel decision considering his lack of practice and less than capable rig, but he rode the entire trail no problem. Gas was expensive on the way out of Moab and we all convinced one another we could make it to Green River. A strong headwind decided otherwise. The motor stopped about 5 miles West of Green River on I70. I took one of the bikes off the roof and rolled to town. One of the locals graciously gave me a ride back to the car in his truck. It was the first and last time I ran out of gas in the car.

On this particular trip to Fruita we’d left later Friday evening and knew we’d arrive to camp after dark. Bailey was saving us a camp spot. He had just started dating Sue and a group of her friends were interested in checking out a free-range camping zone off the Mack exit. He tried to give me directions while we were on the road, but it was difficult describing a spaghetti pile of jeep roads and his service was cutting out as he tried to talk me through the route. We ended up going down a couple roads that turned quite 4x4 as we attempted to blindly navigate in the dark. Finally, we found the spot and were rewarded with a view of the Colorado River out the tent door the next morning. A few weeks after, the Saturn failed emissions testing because of a hole in the exhaust. I ended up taking it to a muffler shop to have a new flex pipe welded in and when I picked it up the mechanic asked me if this was also my off-road vehicle.

During the last few years we lived in Utah, I started spending more time touring and less on the lifts. The pre-dawn rise tours before work became a sacred ritual for me and Cooper. There was something about seeing sunrise from the alpine, usually skiing a decent run down, and drinking the morning coffee on the drive through the valley that brought such a feeling of contentment. North Fork Road always seemed last to be plowed. On one occasion there was around a foot of fresh snow and I contemplated turning around because we’d be dragging undercarriage and there wasn’t a soul around to pull us out if we got stuck. I said what the hell and hit it with some speed. Things worked out ok.

One summer our buddy Andrew came out from MN around the fourth of July and we drove up to Jackson/Driggs for the weekend. Jake broke his wrist and partially detached a retina on a spill at the skatepark earlier in the week, so the trip wasn’t too exciting for him. To Andrew’s and my benefit, he shuttled us on both sides of the pass and at Grand Targhee. Seeing the fireworks from camp in Teton Valley was also pretty cool, but nothing says freedom like a piss with a view.

One of the last photos of the sick Saturn taken in Utah on a casual mtb ride at Powder Mountain.

With the move to Rochester the Sick Saturn became the work truck it always knew it was. We reframed the attic a few studs at a time with countless trips to Menards.

There was still a little time for leisure with our return to the Midwest. This was a weekender in the Chequamegon.

Cooper cashed after a few days on the Superior Hiking Trail. Before the rear doors stopped working they were great for leashing pooches. I’d say it was probably overkill here, but you know if there was a porcupine turd across the lot, Cooper would have been all over it.

If you were ok with taking a lot of parts off, the Saturn could be quite the clown car for bikes. Adam and me on a day trip to Spirit Mountain.

Putting out the vibe while working on Southshore Trails (aka Swampy Bottoms). The route to our trails was a relaxing drive on single lane gravel and atv trails. I showed a local bmxer the spot in hopes of luring in another digger, but he was not stoked about bottoming out his lowered civic in a muddy patch on the drive out and never returned.

Emma (but really Amanda) helping bleed brakes was a circle of life experience for me. I helped my dad bleed brakes on ice racers dozens of times as a kid.

MN snowbanks – never once shoveled any with snow tires on the car.

This was about the time I started seriously considering the need to end the reign of the Sick Saturn. Amanda was moonlighting out of town for the weekend with the Hyundai, and the thought of hauling our kid (soon to be kids) around town with the back doors bungeed shut didn’t seem like a great long-term transport option. Megbert, on the other hand, was living her best life. This was the first time she got to face forward in the car seat and when we got home, she just wanted to sit in the back of the car in the driveway.

Well that about does it for my experience with the Sick Saturn, but it’s legacy shall continue to grow. I gave it back to my dad in March. He’s retired and has been working through its many needed repairs as he prioritizes it in between other hobbies like raising chickens and keeping gophers out of his yard. I suspect he’ll get upwards of $700 for the car when the time comes to sell it.