Goodbye and thank you

Tim sez...

Wow, I too proudly own a 97 SL2 as well !!

It is such a shame that Saturn decided not to build their current cars like they did back then.

Too many poor design changes over the years is to blame.

Mine is going strong. I love it. I never had such a reliable car in my life before the Saturn.

I only have half the mileage you do. Besides driving to/from work, my leisurely drive to New York City is also the reason why my mileage is so low after 9½ years.

So Tim, where has your Saturn driven you over the past decade?

I'm sure you are very excited right now.

Where will you drive your new pet (er, I mean - car) ?

The EPA on the Audi A6 is on par with most SUV's, but that's what you get with the extra horsepower of the 3.2-liter V6.

Good luck with your new car, Tim.

135K miles and that was having it in storage for a year and a half. I am in the military and have done a bit of traveling along the east coast. Mainly between VA, NC, and PA. I will be staying in the NC/VA region as I enter my military retirement but come back doing the same job wearing a suit. Not a bad deal if you ask me.

I just (quite literally) put our '93 SC2 out to pasture. '06 Mustang GT premium (black) replaced it. 50 miles shy of 256,000 miles, mostly headache free. Oh well.

Oddly, this marks an interesting thing - for the first time in darn near

40 years, there's no GM cars at all in the driveway in our family. Not that that won't change - I'd still like a '70 Nova or Chevelle, or maybe an old 50's Chevy pickup with stomp start, or a 70'sish one lifted up and on 38" swampers. But GM's current offerings? ZZZZzzzz.

Are there any 1970 Nova's left on the road? I remember them as rattle traps that rusted out in Rochester NY in 2 or 3 years. They were the beginning of the end for American cars as I remember them.

No, that would be what AMC did with such great hits as the Pacer, Gremlin, Eagle, etc. around that time...That and OPEC are what finally end the American dominance. It was then IMO, that people first started looking at Japanese imports with their fuel economy & low price, when everything prior to that that had come out of that country was considered "jap junk". The Japanese continued to improve their product while American car mfrs sat on their collective asses until they started getting it handed to them in 80's

I remember be given a Nova as a loaner and driving it in very bad weather and feeling the pressure of the water when splashing thru puddles under the carpet. The floor pan was that thin.

That was just ingenuity in safety as it was designed to make you slow down in bad weather... ;)

Seriously, there were certain cars that were in high demand due to the engine/speed and what you could due to modify them with lifts in the back, rims, narrow rears, etc, etc. The most popular were the Chevelle, GTO, and yes, the Nova - Which is probably why the OP wants one....

Scott

The Saturn Relay (17 MPG city 23 MPG highway) is on the list of "least fuel-efficient" vehicles. See above.

Still no Ion hybrid?

Why the odometer in the middle of the dashboard? Is that supposed to be a safety feature? Someone please explain. It looks like it belongs in an Edsel.

Consumer Reports had some good things to say about the SL2--it was rated high for reliability and customer satisfaction. A few years later, Consumer Reports dumped on the Ion. What happened?

Speedometer. Not odometer.

"Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it" - George Santayana

Maybe Saturn could have saved GM--if GM had let it.

-- links snipped-for-privacy@well.com "I got myself a Cadillac but I can't afford the gasoline" - AC/DC

Hey I had one of those, my first car to be exact. I don't miss it though the transmission had a heck of a whine to it. Years later I got a used 6 cylinder Gremlin that could burn a little rubber. I would do ok getting parts until the parts guy came to make and model, and that would elicit grins to outright laughter. At least it wasn't a Yugo. I'm on my second Saturn and it would be really hard to go back.

Keith

A'70 Nova that is.