It's Geeky, It's Hot.. It's a Bonneville!

Last August, my boyfriend and I needed a car. Our Camry was on it's last legs, and we wanted something as plush as it was. We wanted power everything, cruise control, and a sunroof. Oh, and it had to be reliable, too.

We looked and looked and looked. My boyfriend dragged me to thousands of carlots, and spent hours sending me links to Bonnevilles on autotrader.com. Finally, after looking all around town, we fell in love at the car lot up the street.

...With a '96 Taurus Wagon. It was super-comfty, leather, sunroof, climate control, and gorgeous. Low mileage, cheap... It was a glorious time.

Fast forward three months. We took an emergency road trip from PA to Texas to see family, and came back on a Greyhound. The air conditioner clutch went out, and it would cost $1400 to fix, and it'd take at least a week. We had to be back home for work, and decided we'd just spend that $1400 buying something new back home. The Taurus got a new home with my sister-in-law, who had the resources to repair it, and we were once again hunting for cars.

Again, with the Bonnevilles. We looked and looked and looked for a Bonneville. We found several. One overheated on the test drive and needed body work. One had been involved in a wreck with a pedestrian in Brooklyn (thanks Carfax!) Another was $5600 and barely had power windows.

We were on our way up to the local car lot, where we bought our Taurus, and our Bronco months before, and we discussed Bonnevilles. I said that I'd let him buy a Bonneville, as long as it wasn't green.

Th car lot had a chameleon green '96 Bonneville SSE, $2600, with 125k miles.

Once again, we fell in love. Needless to say, we bought it.

Now, for the meat of the review.

The exterior of the car is rather easy on the eyes. It's not too showy, but it's not too plain. The chameleon paint is gorgeous - Although everyone and their uncle drives a green Pontiac, the shimmery green is a bit rarer. The minispoiler makes a great trunk-handle.

Someone once said Bonnevilles come in two forms: Fast and Faster. I concur. This car is zippy - I often find myself having to slow down to merge onto the highway.

The interior is where it really shines. There are three cigarette lighter adapters.. One for my XM radio, one for my cell phone, and one to charge my digital camera! One's on the dash, one is on the back of the center console, and one is on the overhead console, along with a pop-down sunglasses compartment (which also works great for a phone, wallet, credit card, etc..) and another little space, perfect for hiding whatever you're charging with that cigarette adapter.

The trunk release is on the driver's door. That's one of the best features, because you don't have to dig around under your seat or in your glove box to open it. Though if you have a keyless entry clicker, it's less useful, but still handy.

It also comes with an auto-dimming rear view mirror, which I can assume is handy, but mine's broken - The mirror isn't secured, and it wriggles back and forth, so it looks more like a disco than a dimming mirror.

The dashboard is quite gadgety, as most people say. Thank goodness for heads-up display. It tells you everything you need to know without having to look at all the orange lights and remember which one is the gas gauge.

The Driver Information panel is ridiculously useful - It saves having to open and re-close all of your doors when the dome-light won't turn off.. You'll know which door is open. Plus, if you need to know where the gas tank is when Check Gages comes on, it shows you in the diagram.

The seats in the SSE aren't quite as adjustable as in the SSEI, but you still have quite a few controls. The SSEI has nine different booty-buttons on the center console, whereas the SSE just has some switches on the side of the seat.

The cupholders are brilliant - They're right near your knee, if you adjust your seat the right way, so you can easily store a SuperJumbo sized drink and cradle it between the door and your knee to be sure it doesn't fall over.

The radio controls on the steering wheel are incredible, too. It seems that the car was designed so you never have to take your eyes off the road to look at your console to do much of anything.

The compass on the console is quite perplexing. It took a few weeks to get used to, but now I'm fascinated with it. It has two straight lines that signify the road, and the cardinal directions circle around those lines.

The air compressor in the trunk is a neat feature, though I hope I never have to use it.

Gas mileage is pretty good, as long as you keep your tank full. With less than a half a tank, it eats gas like that Japanese guy with the Nathan's hot dogs.

Routine maintenance is cheap and easy. If you're vehicularly inclined and are maintaining it yourself, you can change oil, all the filters, plugs and wires, and all of that for less than $175.. And it's all very accessible. You don't have to be a contortionist to change the oil filter like you did in my '97 Cavalier, and changing the spark plugs is not the archaelogical dig it was with the Taurus.

When we first purchased ours, we took a 200 mile Sunday drive, and weren't particularly cramped. I'm 5'11" and my boyfriend's about 6'2" - My knees don't hit the dash in the passenger side when I have my seat adjusted comfortably, and we have plenty of headroom. We have no friends, so we don't know how the backseat is, although it looks pretty roomy, and has a fold-down armrest.

I drove my Bonneville for the first time last night in a good old Pennsylvania snowstorm. I usually drive my dad's Cavalier in the snow, because that's the only car I've driven extensively in the snow, so I'm more used to it -- Our Camry slid around like a boat the few times I drove it, and our Taurus wasn't around that long. I was amazed that something so big drove like a smaller car. The one time I had to really put it to the test, it passed with flying colors - While taking a sharp bend at the end of a hill, I had to hit the brakes quite hard to make the turn, and the ABS worked wonderfully.

It's hard to explain the difference, but in every other car I've driven, the ABS goes BRAKE-release-BRAKE-release-BRAKE with the braking being the hardest motion, and then releasing softly. The Bonneville goes brake-RELEASE-brake-RELEASE-brake, so it spends more time braking and less time releasing.

In summary, it's not a car with a reputation for being reliable, fast, or sexy, but in my experience, it exceeds all of those standards.