Saturn is similar to Mercury: Mercury has zero image...positive or negative. Saturn has a slight image, and luckily for it its image is one of pleasant dealers and "non-GM" product. Hence, Saturn gets the euro cars because it has the most pliable image within GM. An argument could be made for SAAB, but Saturn has a better dealer network so that's what happened.
Pontiac is the murky one, really. What kind of vehicles does Pontiac offer? Pontiac as a brand is like one of those nasty scatterplot graphs where the trend line could be drawn almost anywhere...They need focus. And money. I believe they'll be getting it by the end of the decade, though. Lutz does not want anymore casualties.
Honestly, Pontiac would have a compelling lineup with a Zeta sedan/GTO coupe pair of vehicles, Solstice and a G6 lineup without an ass-nasty interior. Frankly, GM should put the current AURA interior in the G6 because in my mind that is the kind of quality Pontiac should be offering (minus the wood of course...Pontiac should stick with brushed aluminum-like trim). The AURA has an interior that is just barely competitive. Give it some piano black trim, ditch the plood, and give it some two-tone dash treatments like the OUTLOOK has...then it will be truly competitive for its life cycle. As I see it now, AURA has a great exterior, mediocre interior, good powertrain. It will compete acceptably with the Camry and Accord for a year or two, but no longer than that. Of course, this is perfect, as a new AURA debuts for 2010 on Epsilon II. So in the end I think the AURA is fine because it is what it is: a stopgap. Judging by the OUTLOOK interior, which is class-leading, the 2010 AURA should be excellent.