First Saturn plant to stop making the cars

“Something’s going to happen,” said Tweedy, who made $26 an hour assembling Ions. “I have confidence in this place. I believe something is going to be here sooner or later.”

When GM started building cars in this sleepy farming town, the Saturn plant was touted as a key component of the automaker’s vision for the future.

But as a result of stiffer competition, changing consumer tastes and rising labor costs, GM launched a restructuring plan over a year ago that called for closing 12 plants by 2008 and cutting structural costs. Those changes also changed the mission at the Spring Hill plant.

The world’s largest automaker slashed 35,000 — or nearly one-third — of its U.S. hourly workers in 2006 through buyouts and early retirement deals so that it can compete more effectively with Asian automakers.

Detroit-based GM reported a 2006 fourth-quarter net profit of $950 million, but the company still lost $2 billion for the year. It also lost $10.4 billion in 2005.

Saturn once billed itself as “a different kind of company” making “a different kind of car,” but after a promising start, it let the cars’ looks and technology get stale. New models were finally introduced to mixed results.

Saturn sales, however, picked up last year by 6 percent, and by fall, the brand will have a lineup with no models older than 20 months, including the Sky roadster, a two-seat sports car, the Vue, the Aura midsize sedan, and the Outlook crossover SUV.

The Astra, a small car to replace the Ion, was unveiled in February and is expected to go on sale in late 2007. Vue manufacturing is set to shift to Mexico, and the Ion is being discontinued.

Other GM plants that produce Saturn models are in Wilmington, Del., which makes the Sky; Kansas City, Kan., which makes the Aura; and the Lansing, Mich., area, which produces the Outlook.

Harvey Thomas, the site manager who oversees all operations at the Spring Hill plant, said most of its workers not being laid off will build engines for other GM plants and help convert the facility so it can move from manufacturing plastic to metal-bodied vehicles.

Thomas said workers are going to reconfigure the plant to build “multiple” GM models, though he didn’t know exactly how many.

“We’re going to retool the plant to build any kind of vehicle GM wants us to build,” he said.

To commemorate the last Saturn models rolling out this week, Spring Hill plant officials are throwing pizza parties and invited workers to bring cameras to work to take pictures for a memory book being compiled.

Herron said many workers have mixed emotions about Saturn leaving the plant but are confident about the facility’s future.

“I’m very sentimental about the Saturn brand,” he said. “You’ve got a lot of people that have a lot of heart and soul in this product. I’m very sad to see that go. But before you can have a new beginning, unfortunately you have an ending.

“I’d be much more concerned if there wasn’t a commitment to us with regard to the future. But knowing there is going to be a future ... I have a high degree of confidence.”

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