What was toyota thinking??

Actually, GM's link to Toyota is old and was long ago disolved. However, it is true that the partnerhip was the inspiration for Saturn.

Back in the late 70's andearly 80's GM realized that the Japanese manufactures were doing somethingthe American manufacturers wern't. The U.S. car manufacturers were rapidly losing market share to the Japanese makes. GM wanted a chance to learnwhat the Japanese were doing right. At the same time there was a lot of heat on the Japanese manufacturers to do some of their vehiclemanufacturing here in the U.S. There wereefforts to put an extra tax burden on cars that were not at least 50% manufactured in the United States unless the foreign companies startedcreating jobs for American workers. That is when GM and Toyota got together for a joint venture. GM had a closed plant in California where they used to manufacture Camaros and Firebirds. The plant was idle and needed renovation. Toyota needed to start assembling cars in the U.S. as quickly as possible, preferably quicker than they could by starting from scratch to acquire land and build an assembly plant. GM and Toyota got together and formed a joint venture NUMMI, short for New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. GM provided the plant and Toyota provided the design. The plant made the Chevrolet Nova and the Toyota Corolla. They were built on the same line by the same workers. Basically, they were Corollas made in the U.S. It's just some of them had the Chevrolet Nova name. As Toyota began to set up manufacturing facilities here in the U.S. the deal fell apart. GM sought to use what they had learned from Toyota and create a new way to manufacturer and sell cars. This was the birth of Saturn.