Overview

In this compelling, readable narrative, Joe Sherman explores virtually every aspect of the Saturn project, America's biggest and most publicized industrial success of the last decade. Here is the whole story - Saturn's mysterious beginnings inside General Motors in 1982; the site hunt that involved 38 states and ended in Spring Hill, Tennessee; the plant's construction and the transfer of 5,000 UAW members to a historic Southern backwater; and finally the small car's triumph in the marketplace. Telling the story through the standpoint of dozens of characters, from local farmers, to inspired assembly line workers, to `car smarts and gut feel' engineers, Sherman brings to life a very American story of renewal and growth, of great hope and soured expectations, of greed and lost opportunities. And he reveals that if the USA wants to produce high quality products that the world will want to buy, it must begin to adopt methods similar to those used in making the Saturn car.

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9780195072440

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Reviews

`a rich and detiled assessment' Mark B. Lapping, author of Rural Planning and Development in the United States `a fascinating study that offers a rare look at how corporate America and the American South forged a new chapter in automotive history.' William Ferris, Co-Editor, Encyclopedia of Southern Culture `the most complete history of Saturn to date, covering the period from the original planning to Saturn's successful entry in to the highly competitive marketplace. The author does a fine job of detailing the many problems surrounding the start-up of the Saturn complex.' Donald F. Ephlin, Sloan School of Management `a provocative and insightful book ... If you are interested in the process of change in the '90s, the so-called paradigm shift, In the Rings of Saturn is must reading.' David E. Cole, University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute 'A wide-ranging and ultimately diffuse reconstruction of how General Motors managed to launch a breakthrough line of popularly priced small passenger cars under the Saturn aegis at a time when the parent organization was experiencing convulsive financial, governance, and sales difficulties ... tellingly detailed in many respects.' Kirkus Reviews

A wide-ranging and ultimately diffuse reconstruction of how General Motors managed to launch a breakthrough line of popularly priced small passenger cars under the Saturn aegis at a time when the parent organization was experiencing convulsive financial, governance, and sales difficulties. Drawing on personal research that began within a year of GM's 1985 announcement that the Saturn plant would be located in rural Tennessee's Maury Country, Sherman (Fast Lane on a Dirt Road, 1991, etc. - not reviewed) offers a low-key, anecdotal account of the Motown giant's problems in creating a vehicle designed to vie with Japanese imports, and in producing it in a way that went against the grain of a hidebound corporate culture. He also addresses the ripple effects of the project on an agricultural backwater rich in Civil War history and antebellum architectural treasures. With the exception of those who sold their property early on, Sherman recounts, few residents of the communities surrounding the Saturn complex gained any substantive economic benefits, mainly because all Saturn jobs were reserved for UAW members moved in from other installations GM had closed down. Covered as well here are the snags encountered in convincing cynical trade unionists and their status-conscious superiors that the company meant what it said about teamwork on the assembly line. By late 1990, the Saturn had overcome all obstacles and made its way from the drawing board to showroom. Today, with demand still outstripping supply, the car is a marketplace success, albeit one that has yet to turn a profit for its sponsor - whose position as a competitive world-class enterprise remains in some doubt. While tellingly detailed in many respects, Sherman's narrative wanders all over the lot, fragmenting its focus - and impact. (Kirkus Reviews)

'A wide-ranging and ultimately diffuse reconstruction of how General Motors managed to launch a breakthrough line of popularly priced small passenger cars under the Saturn aegis at a time when the parent organization was experiencing convulsive financial, governance, and sales difficulties ... tellingly detailed in many respects.' Kirkus Reviews 'a provocative and insightful book ... If you are interested in the process of change in the '90s, the so-called paradigm shift, In the Rings of Saturn is must reading.' David E. Cole, University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute 'the most complete history of Saturn to date, covering the period from the original planning to Saturn's successful entry in to the highly competitive marketplace. The author does a fine job of detailing the many problems surrounding the start-up of the Saturn complex.' Donald F. Ephlin, Sloan School of Management 'a fascinating study that offers a rare look at how corporate America and the American South forged a new chapter in automotive history.' William Ferris, Co-Editor, Encyclopedia of Southern Culture 'a rich and detiled assessment' Mark B. Lapping, author of Rural Planning and Development in the United States

Author Information

Joe Sherman MBA is a freelance writer and occasional lecturer at his local college in Vermont. His previous books are: The House at Shelborne Farms (12,000 copies sold), A Thousand Voices (10,000 copies sold), and Fast Lane on a Dirt Road.

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