They arrived from 47 states and a handful of countries. They strapped themselves into harnesses and climbed walls made to look like mountains. Two of them took a respite between the plant tour and the Wynona Judd concert and got married.

There were bands, singers, magicians and a fireworks display with "God Bless America" and "America the Beautiful" as background music. Tattoo artists left their mark (briefly-they were washable) on guests while even a blacksmith demonstrated how he plies his trade. This was a happening, an event likened to Woodstock revisited.

When 38,000 people braved heat, humidity and subsequent cloudbursts to attend, Saturn President Richard LeFauve found just the right words to describe it:

"This is the first owner recall in the history of the auto industry," he told the assemblage of those who own Saturns.

The automaker had invited 605,000 Saturn owners, and while 565,000 sent their regrets (including Roger B. Smith, the former GM chairman who conceived the idea of building Saturn), 38,000 opted to attend the Saturn Homecoming, a two-day tribute to the car, the people who build it and the people who have bought it.

The only states not represented by owners were Wyoming, North Dakota and Montana-the only states where Saturn has no dealers.

Owners arrived in T-shirts designating their home state while Saturn workers wore baseball jerseys with a large 2 on the back to signify, as LeFauve insisted, "that it's our owners who are No. 1."

Hokey, to be sure, but a wild idea turned into an even wilder weekend: 5-mile long traffic jams leading to the farm fields surrounding the Saturn plant here, where all activities were staged, and owners having to place "Hello, my owner's name is . . ." tags in the windows of their cars to enable 15,000 drivers to identify their own in the sea of Saturns cramming the parking lots.

When a voice on the intercom broke in with the message, "Would the owner of a white Saturn please report to the parking lot, you left your lights on," visitors broke into laughter, and not one person scurried from the rain-drenched fields.

A rainstorm Saturday caused some of the tents housing exhibits and displays to collapse, and 11 people were injured. As the crowds were forced to leave the saturated fields earlier than planned, many of them sought out Saturn workers to offer apologies that the rain cut short their celebration.

Saturn owners proved to be a unique breed, not only taking vacation time to get here, but absorbing all costs of travel plus the admission price ($34 for adults, $17 for kids) to the event.

Consider:

- Jon Offutt of Milwaukee, who drove 14 hours and spent $500 to bring his kids, Jamie, Joshua and Jeremy. "Some of my friends thought what I was doing was neat; others just laughed that I'd spend 14 hours chasing a car," Offutt said, "but I'm impressed with a company that cares."

- Bob Ouellette, who fell asleep and ran into a guardrail as he and his wife, Stephanie, drove 19 hours to get here from Albany, N.Y. "We're gonna take some extra time driving back," he said with a laugh as the couple had tattoos of the Saturn logo applied to their arms.

- Connie Newman of Madison, Wis., who drove here with husband Jack "to celebrate my car's birthday." Her SL1 sedan turned 3.

- L.B. Tseng, a Saturn dealer from Taipei, Taiwan, who held a drawing among his customers and awarded 20 of them with a free trip to the homecoming, a promotion that cost him $50,000.

Don Hudler, vice president-sales for Saturn, originated the idea of a homecoming based on the success of several local events sponsored by dealers.

"This grew from road rallies and service clinics and picnics and parties dealers have sponsored for their customers and which all have had fabulous turnouts," he said.

Hudler denied Saturn's homecoming copied last year's successful Harley Davidson reunion, where an estimated 100,000 motorcycle owners showed up, or that the homecoming was a ploy to sell more cars.

"We started planning this two years ago," he said, "one year before Harley had their reunion and at a time when we only had a 10-day supply of cars in inventory nationwide, so we obviously didn't need to revive sales."

So what does Saturn hope to gain from the homecoming?

"We hope to build a closer relationship with our customers and hope they realize we stand behind our product with a genuine interest in our owners," LeFauve said. "But when people ask us what we're going to get out of this, I tell them we never thought about what we're going to get out of it. This isn't advertising or marketing-it's real, it's an emotional experience."