General Motors launched Saturn Ion in 2003 as a replacement for the S Series that had come to an end, but this is not a singulary model, since other designs accopanied this change on the market. According to statistics, Saturn Ion satisfied customers more than other compact cars available on the American market. This is the reason why it was sold for such a long time, till 2007 when it was replaced by Saturn Astra. This vehicle relied on the famous General Motors Delta platform and it came with a standard DOHC Ecotec I4 engine that gave 140 horsepower.
The position of the instrument panel was pretty striking in the interior design of Saturn Ion, thus instead of being located behind the steering wheel specific for most other car concepts, it occupied a frontal position in the center of the dashboard. The Saturn Ion varieties available on the market included the coupe and the sedan. The modernity this car enjoyed was explainable by the gearbox that had enough room for five forward gears modified to fit to the regular manual gearbox. The fuel consume was positively influenced by such a gearbox structure with the potential to improve acceleration too. Moreover, with Saturn Ion, heat was no longer a problem for the planetary gear set.
General Motors upgraded the first Saturn Ion design according to the requirements of a superior more powerful Red Line issued in 2004. The model was imagined as a sportier car with a longer-enduring engine of 205 horsepower, a harder suspension and re-valved shock absorbers; the LSJ, Ecotec engine was the only one used in the manufacturing of this Saturn Ion variant. In the same year, General Motors also launched a limited edition of Saturn Ion 3 that had all sorts of additional improvements in terms of interior and exterior design. The price was higher, but the cosmetic look was surely different. The only colors for this select model included electric blue, black onyx and chilli pepper red.
Until 2007, several additional changes were made in terms of Saturn Ion engine power and cabin decorations. General Motors stopped producing unreliable models like the Aisin which had bad reviews because of various technical issues. The bad publicity was generated from all sorts of materials published by disatisfied customers. A re-modeling of the Saturn Ion had been announced for 2008, and the world wide web was full of pictures for the new model. It was time for Saturn Astra to emerge.
Comments on this entry are closed.