2008 Saturn Astra XR Five-Door Road Test

While the current immigration conflamma has O'Reilly frothing, Pelosi gnashing, and Home Depot's stock tumbling, it's good to know that legal border crossing still rocks it out as the foundation of America itself.

Nowhere will that be more obvious than at a Saturn dealer early next year, when the Anglo-Saxon-bred Astra makes its way across the waves via Belgium to the U.S. in three- and five-door form.

When the Astra arrives, it'll do a couple of things for Saturn. It will give the 17-year-old nameplate the freshest lineup in the GM universe, with its oldest car being the two-year-old Sky roadster. And it will give a final shove-off to the plasticky, inspiration-free Ion, one of the last cars to emerge under GM's old, fusty way of killing cars by committee.

There's almost none of the old domestic GM in any cupholder or storage bin in the Astra. It's a smart, savvy small car with a great price tag that probably will give Saturn the kind of boost that Ford got from the Focus lineup at the beginning of the decade.

But is the five-door XR really up to the global standard set by cars like the Mazda3 and Volkswagen Rabbit? TheCarConnection.com drove the newest Saturn to be put into orbit and found out exactly how its European breeding matches up to Saturn's thoroughly American attitude.

© Source: thecarconnection
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