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General Motors has agreed to sell its Saturn brand to Roger Penske, one of the nation’s biggest auto dealers, and the owner of this year’s Indianapolis 500 championship race car team, Mr. Penske and G.M. announced Friday.

The move rescues Saturn and its dealers across the United States from their demise. It is the latest step by G.M. to sell assets as it reorganizes in Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Saturn, which was part of G.M.’s bankruptcy filing on Monday, had drawn 16 bidders, G.M. said earlier this week.

The price of the deal was not disclosed. Under the terms of the deal, Penske Automotive Group, one of the largest dealerships in the country and of which Mr. Penske is chairman, will initially buy Saturn vehicles from G.M. But Mr. Penske, a former race car driver himself, is expected to buy cars eventually from other carmakers like Renault, through its Samsung Motors unit in Korea.

Along with the Saturn brand, the Penske Automotive Group is acquiring the Saturn parts inventory and the right to sell vehicles through the Saturn dealership network. “We have agreed upon a framework that we believe will build momentum for the Saturn brand,” Mr. Penske said in a statement. “Saturn has a passionate customer base and outstanding dealer network. For nearly 20 years, Saturn has focused on treating the customer right. We share that philosophy, and we want to build on those strengths.”

G.M. said the sale would preserve the jobs of 13,000 people at Saturn and its dealerships. The company has 350 showrooms, virtually all built fresh to sell only Saturn vehicles. The move will more than double the dealership holdings of Mr. Penske’s company, which owns 310 franchises around the world, and which is the country’s second-biggest dealership group in terms of sales. It already serves as the sole distributor of the Smart line of small cars from Daimler. Shares of Penske Automotive Group rose 5 cents, to $14.65 Friday.

Penske Racing has teams competing in IndyCar, Nascar and the Grand-Am circuit.
G.M. is seeking to use bankruptcy to pare itself down to a core group of brands, like Chevrolet and Cadillac, while shutting down or selling off others. Earlier this week, it agreed to sell its Hummer brand to a Chinese heavy machinery company and a stake in its Opel subsidiary in Europe to Magna International of Canada.

G.M. announced months ago that it was seeking to divest Saturn, a 25-year-old subsidiary that initially focused on fuel-efficient cars to rival those of foreign carmakers. Saturn cost G.M. about $5 billion in the late 1980s, including a new factory in Spring Hill, Tenn., and development costs for its small cars. The company heavily promoted Saturn as a “Different Kind of Car, a different kind of car company” and touted the cooperative management arrangement in Spring Hill. Saturn workers were covered by a separate agreement between the Saturn Corporation and the United Automobile Workers union, whose members came from G.M. factories around the country.

But the unit’s sales peaked at 286,000, and both G.M. and the U.A.W. soured on its management style. The U.A.W. proposed a spinoff of Saturn in the late 1990s, but G.M.’s board refused to consider the move. Saturn workers eventually abandoned their separate contract, and the Spring Hill plant no longer builds Saturn models.

On Monday, G.M. said the Spring Hill plant would compete with two other G.M. plants, in Janesville, Wis., and Orion Township, Mich., for the right to build a new small car. In the meantime, G.M. has put production at the Spring Hill plant on hold.
To help sell the brand, G.M. turned to Stephen J. Girsky, a veteran auto industry analyst and former adviser to the U.A.W. and to G.M. Mr. Girsky is now president of Centerbridge Partners and is a director at the Dana Corporation, a major parts supplier.

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