Junkyard Gem: 1999 Saturn SL Sawzall Roadster

Every summer, it happens many times in America: Someone has an old car with resale value hovering around scrap levels on one side of the garage … and cutting tools on the other side of the garage. Next thing you know, that car has had a roof-ectomy, becoming what is known as a Sawzall roadster. Today’s Junkyard Gem is one of those machines, found in a Denver-area self-service yard recently.

This is the absolute cheapest new Saturn available for the 1999 model year: an SL sedan, with an MSRP of $10,595 (about $19,563 in 2023 dollars). 1999 was the final year for the second-generation S-Series Saturns.

Higher-end 1999 Saturns could be bought with DOHC engines, but this car has the base 1.9-liter SOHC four-cylinder, rated at 100 horsepower and 115 pound-feet.

If you bought an SL1 or SL2 in 1999, you could get an optional automatic transmission. Not so with the SL, which had this mandatory five-on-the-floor manual.

So, resale value on a 24-year-old cheap car with too many pedals, faded paint and a worn-out interior was quite low. Its final owner broke out the saw and got to cutting. Here you can see how complex the layers of metal are in modern unibody vehicles.

The B pillars in a four-door sedan are critical structural components, but such concerns go out the window when a car is being hacked up for a few weeks of summer hoonage.

I’ve documented a few Sawzall roadsters prior to this one during my junkyard travels, including a Volvo 244, a 1953 Chevrolet 210 and a Dodge Raider.

When you slice off the roof of a vehicle this way, particularly on a unibody car, structural solidity goes away and the chassis flexes and flops around in most dangerous fashion. In this case, the Saturn’s plastic body panels began cracking and shattering as the car bent in unplanned directions. I know of just a single homemade roadster that doesn’t have this problem, but that’s because its owner welded heavy reinforcing to the car’s frame (so that its interior could be lined with a big tarp and filled with water).

In addition to enhanced danger from unpredictable chassis flex and zero rollover protection, the sharp metal edges of the cut-off areas can slice up occupants.