NOTE: I have no picture of my Saturn Wagon, but this is close enough.
Like a lot of new parents shopping for a vehicle, a minivan is often the safe and wise choice. The room, utility, comfort and safety make a lot of sense when you need room for one or more strollers, pack and play’s and all of those things. We were adjusting well to being parents and raising our baby son Adam and he was a very agreeable little guy. The 1998 Bravada was soon to go back on lease. The suggestion of friends and family was for us to get a minivan, and soon.
Being a GM loyalist, the choice was the Chevy Venture, Pontiac Montana or the Oldsmobile Silhouette, all virtually identical. But it was pretty clear to me that those three vehicles were the bottom of the barrel in every way compared to everything else out there. Some men and women are vehemently anti-minivan due to some perceived stigma. We weren’t that way at all. No matter anyway. Instead, I wanted something I couldn’t have as a boy, but certainly always coveted: a station wagon.
Back in 2001, wagons were waning in popularity as crossovers and SUV’s were already here to stay. The body style was still well represented by the Europeans and Subaru. The Taurus wagon could still be had but was on life support. The Camry and Accord wagons were dropped. Being a GM guy, I liked the looks and size of the new Saturn L Series wagon. With their desire to be a player in the mid-size market, they introduced the L series a year earlier and a wagon variant soon followed. This would be the new first car I ever actually ordered and had to wait for (about six weeks). This beauty was emerald-green, with a tan leather interior and the fuel-efficient Ecotec 2.2 liter DOHC 4 cylinder. We decided to lease again, and it came in somewhere around $375 a month, zero down.
Six weeks later, we got the call that it was ready. Back then, Saturn dealers had the little ceremony at new car delivery time, replete with balloons, applause and seemingly sincere smiles by whatever dealer staff could be cobbled together for the handover of the keys to new owners. I thought the whole thing was really quite silly.
The wagons of my childhood – only they weren’t in our driveway
In the mid 1970’s when I was elementary school age, wagons represented to me something I always wanted but could never have. Our family friends the Prus’s, with 4 kids, had a mid-70’s Ford LTD Country Squire, fake wood grain on the sides, and it was amazing with its massive hood. The Hardy’s, our neighbors up the street, had something even better, a Chevy Kingswood Estate. And my childhood best friends family, the Herc’s, had a pristine and beautifully maintained 64 Buick wagon until late 1976. Uncle Frank preferred wagons as well and had an early 60’s Dodge Coronet and later a Chevelle wagon for many years.
Why was it that our family, with 4 kids, were denied such a right of American passage? I desperately wanted to be that kid sitting way in back, with the rear facing seat, happily waving at other motorists. Dad would surely have loved a wagon. He was a tinkerer and a do-it-yourselfer and would have made good use of the utility to haul mulch, lumber, and everything and anything else from Wickes Lumber and Forest City. And there was endless other possibilities with the roof rack. A brother was at Michigan State University, and a wagon would have been the thing to have to get him and his stuff there and back every fall and spring. But it was never, ever to be. Could it have been cost? Did Mom hate wagons? I’m afraid I’ll never know. But I had to set that right for my own young family and I finally did in the fall of 2001.
The Opel Vectra B Estate- The LW200’s Distant European Cousin
Articles said that the Saturn L series borrowed from the Opel/Vauxhall Vectra over in Europe as well as the Saab 9-5. Both were nicer looking cars. In reality though, it was mainly the global GM2900 architecture and drive line it shared. Beyond that, the commonality was limited to about 130 fasteners from the GM global supply chain. Why it didn’t make better financial sense to just manufacture the Opel Vectra here rebadged as a Saturn is beyond me. And it’s a shame because the 2002 Vectra is a smarter looking package. GM spent a whopping $1.2 billion to retool its now-closed plant in Wilmington, Delaware just to make the L series. GM hedged their bets, thinking the L-Series could double the brands sales volume in one fell swoop. The run lasted only 5 years, until 2005. A quick aside, but did anything sound any less appealing than the name LW200?
The S Series- The Only Saturn from 1990-2002
At the time, a review from Car and Driver in May of 2000 praised the L series as a very solid effort. It was on balance a well executed car built on a stout platform. Testers praised the smoothness of the 4 cylinder and even said it was the better choice than the available V-6. Not surprisingly, critics all panned the rather bland styling. It was no head turner when compared to the very handsome Nissan Altima of the same period.
Then again, if you were going for style points, you wouldn’t be looking at a Saturn anyway. It was to be the model prototypical Saturn buyers would upgrade to when they were done with their Saturn S Series. Up until that point, Saturn unbelievably soldiered on with a single model, the compact S Series, with only minor changes, from 1990 until the L series came along in 2000. The VUE SUV came in 2002.
With a strong dealer network, no haggle pricing and high customer satisfaction, Saturn had a good thing going for a couple of years in the 90’s. When Saturn was started, the brand was touted as a ‘different kind of car company”, firewalled from Corporate to do thing differently, Saturn-specific. Slowly but surely, it was reeled in and became just another GM brand, starved for new product. By the time more appealing cars like the Aura, a totally new Vue (the rebadged Opel Antara), Astra and Sky came around in 2006-2008, it was too late, and the brand was shut down in 2009.
For us, our LW200 was a perfectly fine vehicle, and we had nary an issue in the three years of the lease term and didn’t go back to the dealership for a single issue. It was well put together, adequately powerful, quiet, comfortable, reasonable to insure, and fuel-efficient. It had enough room for the three of us and whatever baby gear for Adam we needed to take with us. Midsize wagons of that era however, were nothing like the mid-70’s land yachts in terms of storage and couldn’t hold a candle to a minivan in that regard. And it would be super tight space wise for what we had coming. In July of 2004 we brought home our second child from the hospital, a boy whom we call Shane. The wagon was due back on lease in October, and not a minute too soon as the storage area in back just wouldn’t do any longer. Among other things, we now had a dual stroller that would not fit in back. Time to think about what was next.
2018 Buick Regal TourX – A COAL of the Future?
So, I managed to check off a box in my automotive bucket list and was happy I was able to do so. I remain a wagon loyalist. I think the old Volvo 240’s (rear wheel drive) are brilliant and a classic. I couldn’t convince Mrs. C in 2010 to let me buy a used Dodge Magnum RT. I personally much prefer the handling of a car over a lumbering SUV or crossover, hands down. After all, any way you slice it, crossovers really are nothing more than tall station wagons as far as I’m concerned. It’s nice to see Subaru and the Europeans still keeping the wagon body style alive. And shockingly, GM debuted a slick-looking wagon last year, the Buick Regal TourX. Someday, I think I’d like another wagon. Hopefully they’ll still be around when I’m ready.
Nice read, what is it you currently drive?
I have a number of COALs left….into the new year… to get to my current DD…You’ll have to wait-and-see.
I had this exact car a green lw200 with a manual transmission car #54. My wife had a silver ls sedan same drivetrain. Mine had traction control and was great in the snow. Low 30s mpg with reasonable power. Same experience with dealers but no balloons.
My dear departed best friend bought one of these, after quite a search for a decent used wagon. It was altogether an underwhelming car to me, but to him it was exactly what he wanted. Practical, economical, and unobtrusive, and had a manual tranny. He had a first-gen MR2 and a lovely old BMW K1200 bike, so he had a taste for good machinery. But for some reason he just had his heart set on this car. He drove it daily for the rest of his life, filling it with garden soil, bike and car parts, tools for a house renovation, cages for foster pets. Once I asked him why he liked it so much, and he said it was honest. It wasn’t nice enough to worry about throwing lumber in, but it was comfortable enough, and drove well enough not to be a penalty box. It carried what it needed to carry, and required no repairs and little maintenance.
The article that brought back pleasant memories of Stephen, and a car that I learned to appreciate.
I’m not familiar with the cargo area of an LW, but I still have an old Ciera wagon, and I’m surprised the double stroller wouldn’t fit. That thing must’ve been imposing. These seem to have a pretty sour reputation, but I’ve always felt it was probably exaggerated.
There is a long standing bias against GM and domestic cars, much of it deserved, much of it not. In the modern era, say, from 2000 on, nobody really builds truly awful cars. Take care of a car reasonably well and it should give you years of good service. As stories from our CC readers show us day in and day out, there are always good and bad outliers from every brand and make.
There was at least one bad car in recent memory, and that’s the first generation Chevy Aveo (nee: Daewoo Kalos) built from 2002-11. It was truly B-A-D in every operational sense of the word, far worse than even the closest current thing to a bad car, the Mitsubishi Mirage.
Slow, uncomfortable, and miserable fuel mileage for a small car, the Aveo did nothing even remotely well. Occasionally, you’ll still see one limping down the road, belching out clouds of blue and/or grey smoke. The only good thing about the Aveo was that, often discounted, it was the cheapest brand-new ride you could find. But you really got what you paid for, like shopping at (the now mostly defunct) Kmart.
Ironically, the Aveo’s successor, the Chevy Sonic, has gotten reviews that indicate it’s as good as the Aveo was bad.
If I recall, the stroller would fit in just fine with one of the seats folded down. It would not fit in with two car seats. Then, say for a weekend away, there was not enough room for other baggage. Had it been a purchase rather than a lease that was turned in ….the solution would of been a roof rack Yakima or Thule storage box.
A friend of mine has one of these with an extremely colorful history. I have tried to encourage him to write it up for us, and can only hope that one day he will.
His Saturn wagon was purchased new and now is closing in on 400,000 miles. While a number of parts have been replaced, I believe it is on its first engine and transmission, though the trans is going to have to be replaced soon.
One day while he was shopping downtown, the wagon was stolen. Insurance wrote it off and paid my friend, and the police found it a month or two later just a couple of blocks from where it was taken by a joyrider, evidently.
Even though the wagon had well over 300k at this time, it went to an auction, and my buddy had to get an industry friend to bid on it and help him get it back. There was miles of red tape to cut through to be reunited with his wagon, but it was the only new car he’d ever had, he’d done much of the work on it himself and knew its history.
He still has it today and it’s closing in on 400k.
As a boy, I always liked wagons as well and I would have been happy to see my dad bring home a big Detroit wagon – preferably a Ford. A friend’s dad owned a few Country Squire wagons from the ‘60’s and ‘70’s, and I was always glad to get a ride in them. We usually had two-door coupes or sedans, and the extra space and windows in a wagon would have been a treat. Both of my sisters have owned wagons at one time or another, and they always got good use out of them. For myself, I’ve never owned one, but they’re definitely on my automotive bucket list. We don’t have kids, but my wife and I would enjoy one for long road trips. I’ve rented smaller SUV’s and crossovers, but I’d love to get a wagon sometime.
Thanks for this expanded COAL entry. Though I was enthused that a new wagon was being introduced at a time when wagons were on the wane, I felt the styling on these was too neutral. Even for Saturn. They appeared inspired in their design by the early 90s Camry wagon, without the Camry’s quirky ‘D’ pillar. I thought GM could’ve made these a bit more interesting in their styling, given their generous size to work with. Though the proportions were interesting, with a relatively long hood and front clip, echoing similar proportions used by BMW and others.
These weren’t bad looking wagons, but they didn’t sell very well. In fact, the entire Saturn LW lineup never met sales expectations. GM just had too many brands chasing too few customers.
Subaru doesn’t actually sell any wagons in the US, unless you want to call the Impreza hatchback a wagon. Everything else is a CUV, though some of the are more wagon-shaped than the competition. Same thing with Volvo – those are all CUVs too. It’s just too advantageous to be able to sell your cars as “light trucks” under CAFE, which is why everything is turning into a CUV.
The only wagons left that I know of are a handful of models from the Germans and the Buick Regal.
True, but the Subaru Outback is pretty damn close. It is just a Legacy wagon with maybe an inch or two of more ground clearance, fog lights, and fancier trim.
It’s a shame consumers didn’t have more sense. If they did, the Legacy wagon would have been Subaru’s big seller. They have virtually the same capabilities of an Outback for less money.
You’re right that “LW200” isn’t a great-sounding name. I’d nominate the Nissan Juke, however, as even worse. Sounds like the noise one makes when swallowing too fast and something goes down the wrong pipe.
Saturn was never starved for product, they got waaaay too much product. It should have stopped at the S-series. Fact is those additional models didn’t result in any significant incremental sales increases over the long term. They did however result in a significant increase in costs to the division. If they would have stuck with the S series and actually spent money on it to keep it fresh they might have actually eventually made a profit.
We leased a Volvo V40 at this same time for about the same price per month after getting out of an Explorer (that’s certainly backwards compared to these days), Baby or so came a year later but the dog was already in hand. For big trips we did in fact go the roofbox route for the stroller, which worked well (and ended up staying on top for months at a time because I was too lazy to wrestle it back down.) By this time Saturn had already lots its charm on the West Coast, while the LW would have been a good size at a decent price, it was extremely rare to see in the Bay Area.
The one thing interesting was that it supposedly was just an Opel with a new badge, a cursory glance told you that it wasn’t so. Like you, I wondered what was so wrong with the “donor” that it had to be completely reworked when other vehicles from the same end manufacturer on ostensibly the same platform (i.e. Saab) basically looked and worked exactly the same on both sides of the ocean.
It intrigues me how these (and especially the Aura) manage to look so similar, are built on the same platform and yet share so few parts.
I understand they might want to change drivetrains, suspension settings etc, but I have to say IMO the Saturn looks terrible, inside and out, compared to the Vectra. Surely they could have saved money and left well alone.
Ive owned many wagons too many when I start counting and from a wide variety of manufacturers, some today would be almost collectable certainly most are getting rare in this country and one was only ever made here, badge engineered sure, but a local model only. The last one was pure utility in fact it was listed as a comercial vehicle by Toyota not a passenger car that was the 90 Toyota Corona diesel wagon I got at auction for $300 pure junk but it ran ok and could take a load that put the rear axle on the bump stops and roll coal out the tailpipe, I did look at a wagon when I bought my latest Citroen yes they do come in wagon but the only one I found in my price range had several non working items and it was automatic, so I flagged it and bought the next best thing a 5 door hatch in manual with everything working as it should.
Ive seen a couple of Saturns but never a wagon ex JDM they werent sold here new.
As Im typing this, Im watching The Brady Bunch on MeTV and its the episode where they all pile into their ’71 Satellite wagon and go camping at the Grand Canyon. I also love a good old American station wagon. The wife and I are casually shopping for new cars and for a fleeting moment considered the new Regal wagon but given the state that GM is in now, I don’t think I will buy anything new from them. We will just keep chugging along in our 2002 Durango until theres a car we find that we just have to have.
Regarding Saturn, my wife bought a new SC2 in 2002 (the last year for the original S-series) and still has it with 325,000 miles on it. She refuses to get rid of it and it still runs and looks good with the original unrebuilt engine and transmission. GM started off with a good thing in Saturn and then had to ruin it by bastardizing them into the rest of GM.
The Brady Bunch, Bewitched and I Dream of Jeanie are all gold mines for CC spotting. There was a fantastic looking Impala on Bewitched last week and I had to check the date the episode aired to see what year it was: a ’65.
Saturn shot itself in the foot…or, GM shot it in the foot, perhaps because of its different marketing approach. But product counts, too, witness the early Saturn Ion with the Japanese automatic transmission thst felt like it was slippng, though it wasn’t. Roto Hydra-Matic, anyone? By the time Saturn changed to a different transmission, the damage was done.
The Aura, though, was quite a good car, but you could get it as a Chevrolet Malibu… usually for less.
Someone at another car site mentioned this car’s transmission fluid pump was connected to the output shaft so the engine still got lubricated as it got towed behind an RV.
In the early 90s I looked closely at getting a new Saturn wagon for my biking adventures but unfortunately you couldn’t get a sunroof in one. That’s always a deal breaker for me. I really believed the Saturn hype though.
As much as I hate to say it, a modern small wagon makes an awful family vehicle. The only reason they worked before 1980 was that babies and little kids didn’t need all the gear modern parents have to deal with.
For family duty today cubic footage is king. And a little Saturn wagon like this ain’t got enough of it. Many modern SUVs are probably as big or bigger inside than the early minivans.
This LW wagon isn’t the compact S series, it is a midsizer with ~34 cubic feet of space behind the rear seat. It’s the equivalent of a current CR-V or RAV4. It would make a good family vehicle for our household of 4.
We shuttled twins around in a smaller Jetta Sportwagen from Day 1 to Year 5. I’m six feet tall and could fit the rear-facing infant seat behind me without making any adjustment to my driving position. Our folding twin stroller fit in the back (dual strollers have advanced since Carlsberg owned this Saturn) and we had a collapsible bike trailer that took even less room and worked well to free up volume on road trips. All the required gear for modern parenting fit in the 30 cubic foot cargo area without issue. We fit everything needed for a 9-day 1600-mile road trip in that car (if only just) and it was quiet and steady and comfortable on the long highway jaunts.
Everyone’s use case is different, but for us that car did the work of a vehicle a full size class up.
“This LW wagon isn’t the compact S series, it is a midsizer with ~34 cubic feet of space behind the rear seat. ”
I guess I am giving away my age, because this is *not* a midsize wagon. The wagon below is a midsize wagon. 🙂
Yes, you are talking about the guy who put a Ford Club Wagon to work for family duty. Some guys are all “More Power!” I am “More Room!
Lol, the challenges of keeping up with size class nomenclature! The saturn is camry/accord size, but I’ll just stick with cubic feet and say that any wagon with 30+ cubic feet of space behind the rear seat like Mr. Saturn above is good ’nuff for my family of four.
That Plymouth is awesome. So much better than the 80s fake-wood panelled Country Squires that ruined the image of wagons for two full generations.
I so wanted to like this car, but it didn’t fit me.
I am over 6′, and the driver’s position with the seat at it’s furthest back, didn’t give me enough leg comfort.
I had five Saturns. I needed a bigger vehicle after the twins were born, but this wasn’t it. We went with the van instead.
No matter how much we tried to be a Saturn family, and we really tried – the cars weren’t better than the Fords I used to drive, and after Saturn, drive today.
I was all about Saturn. Until I owned a used S series. Never again!
Seeking replacement window for 2000 Saturn Rear Hatch Window LW2 5 door wagon. Are any other models compatible?