Hehe, now you americans also have to buy the small cars like we Europeans always had. Maybe you have to give up the gas-inefficient automatic gearboxes also and start working that rightarm.

Opel btw is a low-priced german car. Here in scandinavia its generally considered as a rather good but extremely rusting car.

Buy a volvo instead, the are more qulity and the V70 hauls a lot of stuff.

/Percy , Sweden

hey percy,
ever thought about the price difference between a opel and a volvo?
besides what used to be a real volvo ended with the 7xx/9xx series...

I'd rather listen to Abba than drive a Volvo. Actually, I really kinda like Abba, so that isn't that much of an insult.

Speaking as an Ion owner...

It's probably one of the most functional cars I've ever driven. The Sedan isn't the prettiest, but the coupe is rather nice for what it is, and it's a blast to drive once you understand WHY they did things different.

Course, arguing with a car critic is like pulling teeth from a deaf child. Lord knows 35+mpg highway isn't as important as steel bodied construction so you can get dents, or the protection from wiper spray isn't worth the raised sidebars on the Roof.

Oh wait, I love them all.

That is one ugly looking car. I like looks of the Opel Astra station wagon, but not the coupe. The Cobalt, G5, and G6 look way better than this ugly car.

I think the Opel Astra looks like a GEO metro with a few extra curves. Not the car for me.

I drive a Saturn ION Quad Coupe and in my opinion it is really versatile compared to all the other cars out there in its category. The dent resistant body panels keep the vehicle looking new not like an all metal panels which after the first few dents and dings makes the car ugly to look at.

Going with the Opel design is going out of what the Saturn concept was originally about. The corporate heads at GM really haven't got a clue as to what people really want in a car and that is why they are really suffering in the SALES end of the picture!

The should give people back what they want. A vvehicle that is low maintenance, keeps its good looks longer and can be easily worked on by the average car owner. That should be their perogative. Then GM will ascend back to their # 1 place like before.

Saturn did really well when they first came out back in the early 90's and should have continued the course instead of being messed up by the corporate heads who don't have a clue on what people generally liked!

Hi there,

I'm from Germany and I'm driving an Opel, too. It may be true that certain opel cars had Problems beeing too rusty (I'm driving a 13-jear Old Astra myself) but recently developed Opel Cars don't have these Problems any longer. Anyway, it's interesting that theres only the 1.8L engine availible in the US. In Germany you have a very broad Range of enginges avalible, 1,4 to 2,0 L Turbo engines with up to 240 HP and many Diesel Engines with up to 150 HP. There is also a racing Astra called OPC, a Caravan, a Twin Top with an electronic Hardtop and a newly designed GTC. I don't know what the people at GM are thinking, they should at least give you the chance to choose the engine, or they could give you the GTC Model as an alternative, because it looks a bit more american, and a bit more sporty.

Hello everybody, I drove an 99 Opel Astra turbo diesel in Argentina for 8 years and 200K miles. It was one of the most gratifying cars I´ve ever owned. Fast, frugal, good handling, comfortably, you name it. I hope GM brings a diesel to US soon...

looks nice to me.