We recently bought a 2006 Saturn ION 2 for our daughter to take to college this fall. As our family already owns two Saturns, the decision to purchase a third was fairly easy to make; we did not even look at other manufacturers.
Exterior Styling The ION has been around for a few years, and the stylists at Saturn have been playing around with the exterior styling to 'get things right'. While the basic shape of the car hasn't really changed since its introduction, a few key features have been updated over the years to address some of the 'issues' that the car had. One of those 'issues' was the lack of a defined grille area on the nose of the car. Previously, it was just a tiny slot; now, the car sports a full grille that, while not necessarily the best looking schnoz in the business, is better than what was there before. Beyond that, the shape is pretty generic, with an upward sloping character line on each side of the car.
The one big advantage, as we see it, are the polymer-constructed side panels; this is great for a car that will spend much of its time in college parking lots. As noted above, we already own two other Saturns, and the lack of door dings (aka "parking lot kisses") makes our cars look pretty good for being 3.5 and 1.5 years old.
Interior Styling You either love it or you hate it. I am, of course, referring to the center-mounted instrument panel found in the ION. It certainly takes some getting used to. I've only had a couple of short test drives and I drove the car we bought home from the dealer (15 miles), so I've not had a huge amount of experience with them, but in the limited amount of time I've had with the center IP, I found it to be pretty easy to adjust to. You don't have to move your head quite as much, and since the dials are a bit further away from your eyes, there isn't as much of an adjustment in your vision.
Other than that oddity, the rest of the interior is prettty straightforward looking. A newly redesigned radio and the climate controls are in the center, while there are a couple of nicely placed cubbies available as well. In the package that contains the owners manual, we found some soft rubber pieces that are meant to go into these cubbies so that things don't rattle around; a nice touch. The radio has an AUX jack that allows for iPods and other MP3 players to be plugged into the stereo. As my daughter owns an iPod, this is a very nice feature to have.
If there is a downside to the interior, it's that GM's cost cutting measures are quite apparent with regards to the quality of the materials used. Lots of hard surfaces abound, but
