Saturn Astra: Lost in translation

GM's new imported Saturn compact fails to make up in performance what it lacks in practicality.

With love, from Belgium
With love, from Belgium
Body style: 4-door hatchback
Price About $19,000
Power: 138-horsepower, 1.8-liter, 4-cylinder engine with 4-speed automatic transmission
Mileage: 24 city, 30 highway

Recognizing a good thing - or at least a better thing - when it has one, General Motors is tossing aside the unloved U.S.-built Saturn Ion and bringing the Belgium-built Opel Astra over from Europe. Here in the states, it's being sold as the Saturn Astra.

In many ways, it's a win-win. American car buyers get a much improved product and GM saves, by its own estimate, nearly $1 billion in vehicle development costs. By keeping the name the same, they even saved the money they would have spent stamping out new name badges.

Of course, there are trade-offs for all those saved product development dollars. The Astra may be wonderful for Europeans, but there are a few things Americans are likely to balk at that the car's performance won''t make up for them.

Last updated January 25 2008: 11:54 AM ET

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Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.