Behold the newest member of our family, Amy's sparkly new 2009 Saturn Aura. We had been considering buying a car for a while, at least since we knew Happy would be joining us, if not before. We wanted something big enough for two car seats, one of which would have to be rear facing, but small enough that we'd feel comfortable driving it. Oh, well, and it had to be pretty safe. Since we both rather like Saturns to begin with, we started there. You might remember that we very nearly bought a Vue before Happy came along, but came to our senses. Thank goodness! The rear seat of the Aura has MUCH more room than the Vue, which surprised us considerably. Happy's seat can easily fit, rear facing, without the passenger seat being uncomfortably close to the dash. As an added bonus, there's enough room that Poet currently can't kick the back of the driver's seat. Factor in that the Aura has ABS standard, plus front and side airbags, plus has a ginormous trunk, plus gets better gas mileage than the Vue PLUS costs less, well, it's a pretty good fit for us. Factor in that we ended up with about 17.5% in varying discounts that might not have been available in another few days, we went ahead and bought it. I think the only thing at this point that we don't like is that we'll have to fuel the car from the passenger side, which will be a big learning curve for both of us.
My favorite feature (dunno if it's standard in all Auras or if it just happened to be installed in the one we bought from the lot) is called "tap shift". All the cars I've ever owned have had a manual transmission, but Amy perfers automatic. Since this is Amy's car, it's automatic. But with the tap shift feature, the transmission has a "Manual" setting which allows me to control the transmission, well, manually. It's not anywhere near as fun as driving a car with a real manual transmission, and it definitely has its quirks, but it's a hoot, nonetheless.
So, the red 2009 Saturn Aura replaces Amy's red 2000 Saturn SL2, and joins my red 2002 Saturn SL1, which in replaced my old red 1992 Saturn SL 1.
