Illustration © Mark Stehrenberger

Saturn Pickup Truck Rising?

Saturn is expected to unveil a new, compact SUV in October at the South Florida International Auto Show in Miami. The SUV's platform, known internally as Theta, will initially be unique to Saturn and is expected to spawn several other variants including a rumored small pickup truck.

The Saturn pickup truck, code-named GMT316 according to sources, has not yet been approved and is still a long-shot for production. If given the greenlight the truck would probably not appear until at least 2005. Tom Wilkinson, a spokesman for Saturn, confirmed that Saturn is looking at many different options right now beyond the SUV using the Theta platform.

The Saturn pickup (the Saturn P-Series?) would most likely arrive powered by GM's 3.0-liter V6 mated to an automatic transmission or the SUV's standard 2.2-liter I4 which uses a continuously variable transmission.