Junkyard Find: Zombie 2010 Saturn Outlook XR-L Premium
Seven of the past 11 doomed vehicles covered in this series have been General Motors products, so it's probably time to switch to… oh, to hell with it, I just found one of the very last Saturns in a Denver-area car graveyard and I must write about it immediately.
This is one of the 1,037 "Zombie Outlooks" built in March of 2010 so that The General could "utilize existing materials" more than a year after the announcement that the Saturn Corporation was dead.
I'm always on the lookout for automotive milestones during my international junkyard travels. I had traveled to the Aurora Pick Your Part— a culturally stimulating facility located an easy stroll away from the Denver County Jail— because a search of the yard's online inventory had revealed the presence of one of the very last cars built at NUMMI: a Corolla assembled a month before the plant shut down.
I'd also been looking for a final-year Saturn, since some built-in-2009 Vues, Skies, Outlooks and Auras were sold as 2010 models. I knew this '10 Outlook was there but didn't expect it to be a genuine numbers-matching Zombie Outlook. So, I'll write about the Final Days of NUMMI Corolla later on, because I think this machine is more interesting.
GM had put a bullet in Oldsmobile's head way back in 2004 (seven years after the demise of the Geo brand), and I managed to find a discarded "Final 500" 2004 Alero back in 2019. I continue to search for a junkyard Pontiac G6 from the final month of Pontiac production (January 2010), but I'm proud enough that I have documented one built in November of 2009. In theory, some Saabs were sold in the USA as 2012 models, but the best I've been able to do is a junked 2011 Saab 9-3. Isuzu-badged passenger vehicles were gone after 2009 (though they had been rebadged Chevy trucks since 2005, anyway), while Suzuki managed to sell cars here through 2013.
The far-flung GM Empire was enduring rough times around the end of the 2000s and the beginning of the 2010s, to put it mildly. GM filed for bankruptcy in June of 2009, four years after this publication began its GM Death Watch series.
I began writing for TTAC in the fall of 2010 ( my first article was about the 1947 GMC tow truck— currently sitting in a field in Elko, Minnesota— that I've owned since I was five years old), which makes me the longest-serving author at this fine publication. I penned my first TTAC Junkyard Find in December of 2010, by the way.
So, I can say that I've been here as we covered the drama of 2010s General Motors in general and the seldom-visited gravestone of the Saturn brand in particular, including the poignant story of the Spring Hill plant and the sad aftermath of Opels with Saturn badging .
My seniority here means that I can get away with being as digressive as I want to be with these posts, so here's a no-doubt-TTAC-influenced 24 Hours of Lemons Camaro team's Roger Smith/dead GM brands team theme from an early-2010s race in New Jersey.
The story of Saturn is a characteristically GM mix of innovative thinking and chaotic execution. The original Saturn models were the SL sedans and SC coupes, which hit streets as 1991 models.
Saturn developed a fanatically devoted following among its early buyers, who loved the brand's no-haggle pricing and generally pleasant dealer experience. GM's suits appeared to believe that those Saturn owners loved their cars because of the rustproof plastic bodywork and superior engineering and proceeded to refashion the brand into… well, those of you who understand such things might be able to explain it, because I can't.
GM spent over a billion bucks to design a Saturn based on the Opel Vectra, which launched as a 2000 model and sold poorly. After a belated realization that truck-shaped vehicles were key to sales success, the Saturn Vue appeared as a 2002 model and was bedeviled by intracorporate competition from its Chevrolet Equinox and Pontiac Torrent siblings a few years later.
Some of those happy S-Series Saturn owners still had their cars by the middle 2000s, but few of them retrained sufficient devotion to buy new Ions or Relays. By the end of 2009, only the Vue and Outlook were left, and Saturn owners were offered $1000 or $2,000 "Stay in the Family" rebates on a limited selection of such 2010 GM vehicles as the Chevrolet Aveo and Buick Lucerne.
This is a top-trim-level XR-L Premium, which had an MSRP of $41,160 (about $61,063 in 2025 dollars). That makes it the most expensive Saturn model ever sold. We can assume that the buyer of this one paid well below MSRP, though.
On top of a bunch of standard luxury and convenience features, this Outlook has the optional DVD player with fold-down screen.
Yes, it came with a remote.
This car arrived at the junkyard in beautiful condition. You won't find many five-year-old SUVs on the street with interiors this nice.
The "chrome"-plated plastic grille has the usual laminate separation.
Overall, though, the body looks great.
The 3.6-liter V6 was rated at 288 horsepower. This one sits low because a junkyard shopper has yanked the transmission.
Did anyone ever sit back here?
The Outlook was based on GM's Lambda platform, making it a sibling to the Buick Enclave, GMC Acadia and Chevrolet Traverse. The Lambda held on until the final Enclaves and Traverses were sold as 2017 models.
Was this the last Saturn ever built? Could be!
2010 Saturn Outlook in Colorado junkyard.
2010 Saturn Outlook in Colorado junkyard.
2010 Saturn Outlook in Colorado junkyard.
2010 Saturn Outlook in Colorado junkyard.
2010 Saturn Outlook in Colorado junkyard.
2010 Saturn Outlook in Colorado junkyard.
2010 Saturn Outlook in Colorado junkyard.
2010 Saturn Outlook in Colorado junkyard.
2010 Saturn Outlook in Colorado junkyard.
2010 Saturn Outlook in Colorado junkyard.
2010 Saturn Outlook in Colorado junkyard.
2010 Saturn Outlook in Colorado junkyard.
2010 Saturn Outlook in Colorado junkyard.
2010 Saturn Outlook in Colorado junkyard.
2010 Saturn Outlook in Colorado junkyard.
[Images: The Author]
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Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Hagerty and The Truth About Cars.
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It’s definitely not the last Saturn, based on what you show of the VIN it was built sometime between 3/1 and 3/12 , 2010 (probably closer to the 1st or 2nd of March ) and I’ve documented a couple that were built after the 12th. I’ve also noticed all of the 3/10 Outlooks I’ve seen have been AVIS rentals (by the rpo)
So sad :( they are so rare now. The interior looks great in it. I have 18K miles on my 2008 Outlook XR. 😊