One of the most anticipated introductions today was Saturn’s new Astra compact two-door and four-door hatchbacks. I got to spend some up-close time with the Astra and came away even more impressed than I was when we first ran the press photos on Monday.
Overall, all the materials are high-quality, with buttons and knobsmade from a soft, rubber-like substance that was easy to grip.
The steering wheel has an odd center shape but felt meaty in my hands.Controls included a volume dial on the right that spins up and down. Ihave no clue what the controls on the left do.
The gauges were clear, and the yellow color is unique.
The center stack seemed a bit jumbled, with a lot of room betweenenvironmental and stereo controls, BUT I love the huge knobs forvolume, tuning, temperature, vent speed, etc. More cars should have thegood, old-fashioned knob play this prominent a position.
The manual shifter felt nice in the hand, but I couldn’t test it out on the turnstile.
Over to the left of the steering wheel is another knob! This one is forthe headlights; there are buttons for the fog lights and illuminationlevels.
The hatchback didn’t seem very big in the two-door version — thefour-door was being lifted on a jack to get properly positioned, so Icouldn’t open that one — with little cargo room. However, it seemedlarger than the VW GTI or Volvo C30.
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