Saturn’s Ion blows away land-speed record

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 24/10/2003 (8040 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

GOING to the track to earn some street cred is a well-established move in the auto industry, so GM taking a Saturn Ion quad coupe out to the storied salt flats at Bonneville, Utah, is not totally out of place.

On the other hand, it’s unusual for a car company with a reputation as square as Saturn’s to take a shot at a something involving speed. It’s like having Ed Flanders of The Simpsons take part in a rap contest.

Don’t know how Ed would do, but Saturn did pretty well with its Ion and a turbocharged two-litre four-cylinder Ecotec engine, passing the previous record of 183.086 mph in the G/Blown Fuel Altered Class by nearly 30 mph.

On a hot run across the 12-km expanse of the white flatlands west of Salt Lake, the 700-hp Ion was clocked at 212.684 mph, blowing well past the record previously held by a 2001 Honda Civic.

The Ion was, of course, not totally a stock machine, but it was surprisingly similar to the Red Line model that will be available at Saturn retailers soon. Indeed, the point of the test was to “demonstrate the ultimate performance capabilities of the Ion Red Line package under extreme conditions.”

According to the executive director of GM’s Performance Division, Mark Reuss, this program will not be the last of its kind.

“These remarkable machines are a preview of things to come from GM,” Reuss says. “The Saturn land-speed-record project signals an entirely new approach to performance at GM. This wasn’t a back-door, ‘skunk works’ project – it was a fully integrated factory effort that brought together the best resources and many of the brightest people in our organization to make a bold statement about GM’s capabilities.”

Whatever’s coming up from GM, the Saturn Ion Red Line quad coupe is not a slug.

First off, it must be noted that the quad coupe gets the same interior upgrades as the Ion sedan for 2004, which were meant to “improve overall harmony among material, colors, grains and gloss.”

So the interior of the coupe now includes a monochromatic ebony instrument panel that includes steering wheel, featuring “soft touch” paint on the center stack and upper grille surfaces, and stereo improvements.

Highlights of the Ion Red Line quad coupe include a supercharged and intercooled version of the two-litre Ecotec four-cylinder engine with a heavy-duty Getrag five-speed, short-throw shifter, a performance-tuned exhaust, four-wheel anti-lock disc brakes, a beefier drive axle and equal-length driveshafts, 17-inch, five-spoke forged alloy wheels, performance buckets, a ride height lowered 10 mm, a stiffed-up suspension, and enough style gewgaws to make everyone know you’ve got a hot car.

And you don’t even have to go half way across the continent to Utah to prove it.

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