The Murphy family ImSaturn page

Well, today we lost the oldest member of our Saturn extended family. My daughter's 1994 SC2, which she called "Kitten" is gone. She's been donated to a local charity, Vehicles for Change, that takes used vehicles and provides them to families that need a good, usable car to drive to work. Kitten gave her over 50,000 miles of reliable transportation and I'm sure she'll be just as good to the next owner.

Thanks, Kitten, for keeping her safe for all these years. So long!

Updating an earlier blog post (sorry, been way too busy to blog lately):

I've been keeping detailed gas mileage records on my former 2003 VUE and my 2007 VUE Green Line since March of 2005. This lets me directly compare the cost of operating the two vehicles.

For the 2003 (AWD V6), I recorded 21.361 MPG over 20,529 miles at a cost of 0.12 per mile (for fuel only).
For the 2007 Hybrid, I've received 26.777 MPG over 20,504 miles at a cost of 0.11 per mile.

Gee, you might say, only 1 cent per mi… Continue

I try to spot Astras on the road with little success (ok, today I spotted one. Unfortunately, it was my wife Diane driving hers so I guess that doesn't count.)

However, I'm also collecting photos of Astras on the road. Unfortunately, not here in the US. :-)
Earlier I posted a bunch of Vauxhall Astra photos taken in the UK, mostly on the island of Guernsey in the British Channel Islands (that's where Diane's from.)

Today, I posted a couple of Opel Astra photos taken in Bermuda.

Now all I have… Continue

This weekend while sitting at a traffic light, a woman in a minivan motioned to me to roll down the window. I thought she was going to be asking for directions. What she said was "I was admiring your car and was wondering what it was." When I replied "a Saturn Astra" I got the classic "that's a Saturn?" response, then a comment that she would consider it when she dumped the gas guzzling minivan.

I didn't see a camera anywhere so I don't think this'll be the next Astra ad. :-)

I've been keeping detailed gas mileage records on my old 2003 VUE and my 2007 VUE Green Line since March of 2005. This lets me directly compare the cost of operating the two vehicles.

For the 2003 (AWD V6), I recorded 21.361 MPG over 20,529 miles at a cost of 0.12 per mile (for fuel only).
For the 2007 Hybrid, I've received 26.330 MPG over 16,858 miles at a cost of 0.11 per mile.

Gee, you might say, only 1 cent per mile? Big deal. Well, it's not quite that easy. That 11c per mile is mostly due… Continue