Third Place
2004 Saturn VUE AWD Red Line
It's easy to imagine the Saturn VUE Red Line as sort of a make-the-best-of-it vehicle a young sport-compact car-culture guy might turn to if a lost weekend in Vegas ended with an inexplicable bride and little-one-to-be. What to do? Buy the transformer-like Red Line.
It'll accommodate both sides of your awkward new life, offering such unusual feature pairings as easy-access LATCH attachments for the child seat and a big-attitude electric-lime paint job. Or how about room for the collapsible crib in the back and a 250-horse Honda-designed-and-built engine stuffed up front? Maybe married life can be tolerable. The idea of a cargo-swallowing SUV set up to perform entertainingly on the street isn't new. It just hasn't been pursued much below the mega-buck strata of Porsche's Cayenne or BMW's X5.
The smooth and punchy Honda...
The smooth and punchy Honda V-6 is offered on other VUE models, so it's not a Red Line-exclusive powerplant.
In Saturn's case, it exists in the form of the Red Line Performance Package, which consists of a bulked-up suspension beneath a one-inch-lowered body, 18-inch painted alloy wheels surrounded by 245/50 all-season tires, a special front fascia (with a serious underbite), the monochromatic treatment, and a chrome exhaust tip.Total: $1995. Together with the stout (Pilot and Odyssey-sourced) Honda engine that comes standard with the AWD V-6 model, the VUE Red Line is an SUV that can be maneuvered farther off-road than you'd imagine--although we sometimes had the feeling that a reel from "The Fast and the Furious" had gotten mixed into "Lawrence of Arabia."
Once you get past the bilious...
Once you get past the bilious color of our tester, the VUE isn't a bad-looking ride. It sits the lowest, has the most aggressive (for on-road, anyway) rolling stock, and works hard at being sporty.
While the others in this test--to varying degrees--steer, brake, and accelerate competently on the road, the Saturn elbows you to strap on Mr. Toad's goggles. When a corner approaches, you don't just estimate the steering angle you'll need and approximately when to apply it; you're invited to calculate an exact mental trajectory, dot by dot, from entry to apex to exit. The brakes, much like the Equinox's, have a good solid feel when you start to tap into them.
The VUE shares the Equinox's feather-effort, electrically assisted steering, which is so over- assisted that you wonder why it doesn't go all the way and steer itself. Yet it's interesting to note how the Saturn's stiffer suspension presents this steering in a much better light. For instance, in the middle of a long bend, the two vehicles probably have very similar steering angles and efforts. But the VUE's tightly tied-down chassis means you can inject much subtler steering motions entering and exiting it. There is a ride penalty here, but that's what often comes with such a marked increase in handling prowess.