Of all the "Oh what could have been..." stories to ever come out of Detroit, the tale of the Sky and Solstice two-seater twins from Saturn and Pontiac is among the most poignant.
Saturn had been born in the Eighties as a response to complaints about the state of American, and especially GM, automotive manufacturing. General Motors started a whole new division and built it a whole new factory in Spring Hill, Tennessee. The cars and the manufacturing process were supposed to be a clean sheet of paper. The first cars, the SL sedans and SC coupe, were produced for the 1991 model year and shared nothing of their platforms or mechanicals with other GM products.
That dream faded over time and by the 2000s, Saturn was selling badge-engineered products like every other General Motors division, albeit the Saturns were generally badge-engineered with or from various European properties held by GM at the time.
Debuting for 2007, the Saturn Sky was on the new Kappa platform, a stubby RWD base intended from the ground up to be used for two-seat convertibles and badged variously as the Sky, Pontiac Solstice, Opel GT, and Daewoo G2X.
Base cars had the LE5 2.4L Ecotec DOHC four cylinder, with variable valve timing and a 10.4:1 compression ratio combining for a healthy 177 SAE net horsepower.
The Sky Red Line, like the Bluestone example in the photos, featured upgraded suspension components and functional cooling ducts in the front fascia leading to the forward brakes. The Red Line also had the LNF 2.0L Ecotec intercooled turbo, a direct-injection motor that made 260 horses and gave the Sky some serious performance.
Road & Track's '07 test car zipped to sixty in 5.6 seconds and through the quarter in fourteen seconds flat at 99 mph, topping out at 142.
Alas, the Sky only lasted a bare handful of model years before disappearing along with the rest of the Saturn division after the '09 model year.
The one in the photos was captured in October of 2024 using a Nikon D7100 and 16-80mm f/2.8-4E VR zoom lens.
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