Saturn Ion - An Overview
Written by man on Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 in Other.
Launched in 2003, Saturn Ion is one of the many car models manufactured by General Motors; it came as a replacement for the Saturn S Series, the first line of production since the beginnings of the division. According to statistics, Saturn Ion satisfied customers more than other compact cars available on the American market. Here we have the reason for its sales longevity, till 2007 when Saturn Astra took its place. This vehicle relied on the famous General Motors Delta platform and it had a standard DOHC Ecotec I4 engine that produced 140 horsepower.
The interior design of Saturn Ion had a very striking feature because of the instrument panel position, thus instead of the traditional location behind the steering wheel as it happens for most other car concepts, it occupied a frontal position in the center of the dashboard. The coupe and the sedan made the only two variants of Saturn Ion ever produced. The novelty this car brought was explainable by the gearbox that had enough room for five forward gears adjusted 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.
An upgraded Saturn Ion variant appeared in 2004 as part of the Red Line designed by General Motors. The model was planned as a sportier car with a more powerful engine of 205 horsepower, a stiffer suspension and special valved shock absorbers; the model relied on a 2.0 liter Ecotec engine known as the LSJ. 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. Only three color options were available: black onyx, chili pepper red and electric blue.
Until 2007, several improvements were made in terms of Saturn Ion engine power and interior design. General Motors stopped producing unreliable models like the Aisin which had bad reviews because of various technical issues. It was during this time that Saturn Ion gained a negative reputation because of the bad publicity received from discontented reviewers. General Motors announced an upgrade with the re-launched Saturn Ion in 2008, pictures of the new model even circulated on the Internet, but eventually the manufacturer dropped the concept and turned to a re-badging. It was time for Saturn Astra to emerge.
