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Launched in 2003, Saturn Ion is one of the many car models manufactured by General Motors; it came as a replacement for the Saturn S Series, the first line of production since the beginnings of the division. Statistics indicate that, Saturn Ion pleased customers more than any other compact car sold on the American market, and this is the reason why it was sold for such a long time, till 2007 when it was replaced by Saturn Astra. This car included the famous General Motors Delta platform and it came with 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 the traditional location behind the steering wheel specific 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 enjoyed was explainable by the gearbox that allowed 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.

General Motors upgraded the first Saturn Ion design according to the requirements of a superior more powerful Red Line issued in 2004. The model was planned as a sportier car with a more powerful engine of 205 horsepower, a harder suspension and re-valved shock absorbers; the model relied on a 2.0 liter Ecotec engine known as the LSJ. 2004 also saw the launching of a limited Saturn Ion edition with upgrades both in outer and interior design. The price was higher, but the cosmetic look did matter for certain buyers. The only colors for this select model included electric blue, black onyx and chilli pepper red.

Until 2007, several additional changes were made for the Saturn Ion engine power and interior design. General Motors stopped producing unreliable models like the Aisin which had bad reviews because of various technical issues. The bad publicity was generated from all sorts of materials published by disatisfied customers. A re-modeling of the Saturn Ion had been announced for 2008, and the world wide web was full of pictures for the new model. It was time for Saturn Astra to emerge.

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