In the auto industry these days, having any good news, or good luck for that matter, would be considered a blessing. While many of the manufacturers fell into commitments for gas guzzling trucks, including General Motors, Saturn does appear have a ray of light when it comes to potential blockbuster consumer demand.
The Saturn Aura appealed to me on several levels. Admittedly, compact cars are my least favorite category, but they've become some of the most interesting to me as the rising fuel prices have created better-than-average demand for the fuel-sipping compacts. So, with renewed enthusiasm for the marketplace trend, I jumped into my Astra tester and went about trying to decide if I could really drive one every day.
Surprisingly, the answer was "yes."
The all-new 2008 Astra is a really great looking three-door. Propped up on relatively giant 17-inch, 10-spoke alloy wheels, featuring a dashing profile that starts low on the front and arches aerodynamically over and down to the sporty integrated roof spoiler, the Astra looks like a lot of fun to drive.
The Saturn Astra three-door XR base costs $17,875, a relatively low sticker for good fuel economy and seating for five. Impressive were the Astra features usually not even within sniffing distance on low-budget cars. Look for projector-beam fog lamps, rain-sensing windshield wipers, rear-window wiper, and the kicker, a power-heated outside mirror. Other notable standards are StabiliTrak, keyless remote entry, automatic headlamps, and traction control. Few cars in this class deliver anything close to this much equipment for the price tag.
After tagging on some nice options, my tester came to $21,160. My tester had an impressive heated leather seating option for both front passengers as well as an amazing upgraded audio system with six-disc CD player, MP3 format, delivered through seven speakers.
Did I mention the Astra XR was a lot of fun to drive?
Making the Astra fun (not necessarily fast) is a 1.8-liter four-cylinder engine that producing 138 horsepower. Mated to a five-speed manual transmission, the shifts were tight and the Astra was responsive. There was a little work running through the gears getting merged onto the highway a couple of times in tight traffic, but that was the extent of the hard work. The Astra delivers an EPA mileage rating of 24 in the city and 30 mpg on the highway. |