![]() Two things any enthusiast would marvel at. ![]() Our Dynojet revealed the truth, which is an impressive 197 hp at the wheels at 6450 rpm and 169 lb-ft at 5250 rpm. There are two great things about the new Saturn ION Red Line. The Performance Division destroked the engine, lowered its compression ratio from 10:1 to 9.5:1, bolted on a Roots-type supercharger (making 12.5 pounds of boost), stuffed in a Laminova air-to-water intercooler, and underrated it at 200 hp and 149 lb-ft of torque. That supercharged engine is a 2.0-liter version of the Ecotec four-cylinder, which is now powering all of GM's small cars in normally aspirated 2.2-liter form. They even managed to radically improve the car's electrically assisted steering and keep the price just under $20,000 in the process. They did this by supercharging the Red Line's engine, and tuning its chassis on the famed Nuerburgring circuit in Germany. That job was to transform that hemorrhoid of a car into a more refined machine that performs as good as or better than the Nissan Sentra SE-R Spec V, Acura RSX Type-S, SVT Focus and MINI Cooper S. So if you consider what they had to start with, the engineers in the GM Performance Division should all be commended for a job well done. It's slow and crude, with the worst steering since the 1903 Curved Dash Oldsmobile, which was steered by a tiller. The ION, in its non-Red Line garb, is simply one of the most disappointing cars we've ever driven. The Red Line offer as much horsepower as. They're the fault of the boneheads who designed the Saturn ION in the first place. Saturns Sky offers bold styling that GM hopes can lure buyers away from the popular Mazda Miata and Honda S200. In defense of the capable team of engineers that make up the recently formed GM Performance Division, most of the Red Line's flaws are not their fault. Under the hood youll find a 4 cylinder engine with more than 200 horsepower, and for added security, dynamic Stability Control supplements the drivetrain. These problems range from the truly unfixable, like the car's huge 185-inch length, to the fixable, like a tachometer that's always 800 rpm behind the motor. The rest of the car, however, while not without many positive attributes, has a list of problems that keeps us from fighting for the keys. Covered in a combination of quality cloth and actual leather, they provide any sized driver ideal support and unmatched comfort. Supplied by Recaro, the Red Line's buckets are sized and shaped to perfection.
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