This kind of thing happens over and over in America every summer.Someone has an old car with resale value floating around in the corner of their garage at scrap level…and Cutting tools It’s on the other side of the garage. Next thing you know, the car has had its roof cut off and is now known as the Sawzall Roadster.Today’s junkyard gem is one of the machines recently discovered at a Denver-area self-service yard.
This is the cheapest new Saturn available for the 1999 model year. It’s an SL sedan with a MSRP of $10,595 (about $19,563 at $2023). 1999 was the final year for the second generation S-series Saturn.
High-end 1999 Saturns can also be purchased with DOHC engines, but this car is powered by the base 1.9-liter SOHC 4-cylinder, rated at 100 horsepower and 115 lb-ft.
If you purchased an SL1 or SL2 in 1999, you can get the optional automatic transmission. This was not the case with SL, and this 5-on-the-five manual was mandated.
In other words, a cheap 24-year-old car with too many pedals, faded paint, and tattered interiors had a pretty low resale value. The last owner took out a saw and started cutting. Here you can see just how intricate the metal layers of modern unibody vehicles are.
The B-pillar of a four-door sedan is a critical structural component, but when the car is hacked for weeks at a summer festival, such concerns disappear altogether.
I’ve logged several Sawzall roadsters before this one during my junkyard trips. volvo 2441953 Chevrolet 210, dodge raider.
Cutting off the roof of the vehicle in this manner, especially for unibody vehicles, results in a loss of structural robustness, bending the chassis and causing it to flop around in the most dangerous of ways. In this case, the Saturn’s plastic body panels began to crack and shatter when the car turned in an unplanned direction. I know of only one home made roadster he doesn’t have this problem for the following reasons. its owner welded heavy stiffeners to the frame of the car (so that the inside can be covered with a large tarp and filled with water).
In addition to increased hazards from unpredictable chassis bends and zero rollover protection, sharp metal edges in cutoff areas can cut occupants.
Depleted shotgun shells, cans of Red Bull and cigar butts show that the last days of this car were filled with excitement.
Plastic body panels that are resistant to dents, cheap lease agreements. What more could you want in 1999?
