A car does not always have to be very old to get a place in this category. This Saturn Vue from 2003 proves that, which succeeds because of its unfamiliarity here in the Netherlands. Yet this Saturn is actually more famous than you might immediately see.
Sometimes you can take the name of this column very literally, because Techzle reader Bernard Stikfort came across this Saturn in the ‘wild’, in the Drents-Friese Wold National Park. We would like to thank him for taking and sharing these photos! The fact that the car was parked here probably means that the owner of the Saturn has the ‘active lifestyle’ that Saturn’s marketing department at the Vue couldn’t get enough of.
The Vue was in fact a fairly compact SUV by American standards that mainly appealed to young and ‘active’ families. The basic setup was fine in that respect, but the family face of Saturn was a bit unfortunate on the Vue. Its not very cheerful looking into the world with the remarkable and typical American hood protection on top, make it a striking appearance, to say the least. Later it would become a lot less idiosyncratic: the second generation of the Vue was simply a rebadged Opel Antara. After all, the Vue was on the GM Theta platform from the outset, on which we here in the Netherlands knew the Antara and the Chevrolet Captiva. By the way, this 1,600 kilo heavy Vue also contains a well-known engine: a 185 hp 3.0 V6 that was developed by the European branch of GM. We know it from the Opel Omega and Saab 9000. A 2.6-liter variant of the same block was available in the Opel Vectra B and the 3.2 version in the Vectra C and Signum.
The fact that the second Vue became an Antara with Saturn logos also explains directly that the first Vue plays an important role in American automotive history. After all, this was one of the very last cars that (at least externally) was really designed as Saturn. After all, the brand died in 2010 and at that time almost exclusively had only slightly modified models from GM sister brands in the showroom with a Saturn logo on it.
In any case, the owner / owner of this Vue seems happy that Saturn put this car together in 2003, because we wouldn’t be surprised if it has been with the same person from day one. After all, the car was delivered new in April 2003 in the US, came this way more than a year later and is still in the possession of the person who brought it to the Netherlands. Probably a case of emigration, or someone fell in love with the Vue at the time and decided to have one come over.