Penske Automotive will not buy GM's Saturn. (Associated Press)

Historians reviewing what went wrong with Saturn shouldn't blame fickle consumers for turning their back on a brand trying to do things differently, says an automotive marketing expert.

"Saturn will stand out as a spectacular marketing success," Ashwin Joshi, an associate professor of marketing at the Schulich School of Business in Toronto, told CBCNews.ca on Thursday.

Saturn was set to be sold this week to Penske Automotive Group Inc. But Penske backed out after it failed to find another automaker to manufacture Saturn models after GM stops making them after 2011, a development GM president Fritz Henderson called "disappointing."

The automaker succeeded in developing a loyal following, but failed to deliver in the technical department, said Joshi.

"There's supposedly a study that says that people's top three fears are fear of public speaking, fear of dying and fear of buying a car," said Joshi. "So fear of buying a car is right behind dying. And GM took that off the table with Saturn."

GM launched Saturn in 1990 as "a different kind of car company." People were attracted by its low-key showrooms and no-pressure, no-haggle pricing.

But GM went even further in trying to prove to consumers that it could practise what it preached. Dealerships were not franchised, but were owned outright by GM. A separate labour deal was negotiated with its unions. The car even had a money-back guarantee.

In fact, Saturn was everything that GM is now promising it will become, said used-car guru Phil Edmonston.

"Saturn speaks to the core of what GM did wrong," Edmonston, the author of the Lemon-Aid book series, said in Toronto.

Example of 'integrated marketing concept'

Saturn was to be a different type of car from the first step in the manufacturing process to the day the car was sold.

"It was a solid example of an integrated marketing concept; externally marketed and internally absorbed. But its failure shows it still needed more than sales staff clapping for you as you drove your car off the lot," said Joshi.

GM's hope was that Saturn, with its dent-free plastic panels, would attract younger buyers with smaller, hipper cars. But despite a cult-like following that drew thousands to annual reunions in Spring Hill, Tenn., where they were made, the brand never earned money.

As GM focused more on high-profit pickup trucks and SUVs, Saturn began to languish in the late 1990s.

"They got the front end right. What they didn't get right was the technology," said Joshi. "They should have owned fuel efficiency, they should have owned green technology, they should have owned the minivan market."