Way to go, Saturn

Saturn has always seemed to analogous to Dodge in the eighties. A viable car company with terrible cars. Up till recently, the Saturn entire lineup has held all the excitement of a , i.e. none. Such being the case, I treated Saturn like I treated the Chrysler in the eighties: something to ignore. While I was busy ignoring Saturn they (finally) came up something worth paying attention to. Saturn's Sky roadster came out of left field much like the Dodge Viper did years ago. The Sky is based on the same platform as Pontiac's very well received Solstice; for my money, the Sky may be the better looking of the two. The Solstice is has a little 'chick car' to it and the Sky has a more chiseled, agressive look. How did that happen?

Okay, everyone agrees, the sky's nice; it's easy to make a killer roadster. It's almost impossible to make a midsize sedan that is not as boring as the tax code. Saturn comes up with the Aura, another handsome car with an awful name. The brand design language started with the Sky works well as executed here. Not (too) derivative, not bland, not retro. The wheel arches are nicely chiseled, the high shoulder line has an Audi-esque quality, which is probably the best choice of German inspiration. A hell of an improvement over the L-series, the chrome grill it received in a mid-run facelift made me think of something you'd see on something made in an eastern bloc country.

Now Saturn is definitely on a roll, I should be paying attention by this time, but I'm still not. Recently I happened across Saturn's newest SUV, the Outlook, a replacement for the awful Relay, now I'm noticing. This almost makes up for the TrailBlazer, that and nearly every other SUV GM has ever made. Again, nicely chiseled, the new Saturn design cues work well here. It's based on the same platform as the GMC Acadia, also above average design from GM. The third vehicle based on this platform is the Buick Enclave, which is a great improvement over it's predecessor and not just a badge engineered model, but actually has unique sheetmetal and glass, but I digress.

Saturn recently unveiled the Astra hatchback, again, very nice. They've sucessfully come up with an original look for their vehicles that works well across the whole range of vehicles. The sporty compact segment is not to be overlooked, or your competitors, will claim it for their own. The four door version has a VW Golf Rabbit look to it, not as though it's a copy, but a lot of the same massing, etc.

The turnaroun at Saturn is beyond remarkable, Cadillac has pretty much done the same thing and I thought that was a fluke. Somebody needs to tell Pontiac, Saturn is eating their lunch.