General Motors launched Saturn Ion in 2003 as a replacement for the S Series that had come to an end, but this is not a singulary model, since other designs accopanied this change on the market. 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 car included the famous General Motors Delta platform and it had a standard DOHC Ecotec I4 engine that gave 140 horsepower.

The interior design of Saturn Ion had a very striking feature because of the instrument panel position, thus instead of being located 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 came from the gearbox that had enough room for five forward gears adjusted to the regular manual gearbox. The ratios were conceived in such a way so as to improve the acceleration time and make fuel consume efficient. Moreover, with Saturn Ion, the planetary gear set no longer caused overheating issues.

An upgraded Saturn Ion variant appeared in 2004 as part of the Red Line designed by General Motors. The model was imagined as a sportier car with a more powerful engine of 205 horsepower, a stiffer suspension and re-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. The only colors for this select model included electric blue, black onyx and chilli pepper red.

Until 2007, several additional changes were made in terms of Saturn Ion engine power and cabin decorations. Some of the varieties were also discontinued because of various technical issues that made their reliability questionable: this was the case with the Aisin model. The bad publicity was generated from all sorts of materials published by disatisfied customers. 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. And then Saturn Astra emerged.

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