I’ve owned and driven some fairly pathetic vehicles: An ’85 S-10 that shifted out of first the way a subway lurches from a stop. A ’94 Buick Skylark “coupe” with no front suspension bushings (not worn—none) and vibrations so bad that the entire steering column would shake up and down about 2 inches. An ’89 Probe Turbo, purple with pink pinstriping, that ran for a week and then suddenly decided to make about 10 horsepower. An ’82 Suzuki 650 motorcycle with a backlit gear indicator, but no second gear. But none of these are quite as bad as the mid-90s maroon Saturn sedan that Noah drives. It brings shame to us all—especially when Noah drives it carefully and deliberately after donning his driving gloves.

The car is officially a Saturn SL. Powered by a laughably anemic 1.9L I4, it makes…some horsepower. The redline is low and the powerband is narrow; you essentially have to drive between 2300rpm and 3500rpm to avoid lugging the engine or making it sound like a wheezing old crone. The car was relatively unchanged from 1990 to 2002 (during which time, the average desirable car was updated at least 3 times), so at least you knew that when you were driving around in your ugly 1992 Saturn, you weren’t really outclassed by the slightly less ugly 2002 Saturn trundling along in the lane next to you.

The car’s appearance is unpleasant. From 1990-95 the SL sedan looked like the union of 3 different cars; to this day, I still think Saturn just superglued the nose of the SC coupe to a 4-door body and pronounced it a different car. Noah’s ’96 is slightly better; it benefitted from a stylistic update that at least made the car look as if it had been assigned its very own designer. The shape of the car, however, remains a monotonously dull bubble suited for elementary school nurses, paralegals, and other highly fastidious types.

The driving experience is more unpleasant than the car’s appearance. Handling is poor, mainly because the car is softly sprung, has no anti-roll bars, and possesses a high center of gravity (to accommodate the bulbous hairstyle of its typical driver). The steering wheel, in addition to being ugly, is a 2-spoke. The spokes, which house the horn buttons, are positioned roughly at 4:30 and 7:30, making it impossible to sound your horn at the irritable chap who just passed you for responsibly motoring at 5mph under the speed limit. Steering is vague, with an amusing dead spot so large that you can scare unsuspecting passengers by sawing at the wheel on the highway.

Noah’s brakes are especially bad; they go pretty much all the way to the floor and, once engaged, are incapable of locking the wheels. I would like to think that this is due to Noah’s negligence, but I fear that the Saturn SL was delivered from the factory this way. It is impossible to modulate the brakes; the effective travel of the pedal during engagement is less than an inch.

My most special ire, however, is reserved for the directional stalk. In most cars, I can manipulate the stalk with a gentle flick of the wrist. It is light, easy, pleasant. In Noah’s Saturn, however, the effort required to move the stalk is thrice that of a normal car, and the initial effort is high. It feels more like breaking carrots in half than turning on a directional, and every time I signal to the left I expect the stalk to come off in my hand. If that wasn’t enough, the stalk is at least an inch and a half in diameter. It closely resembles a cheap Faberware pot handle.

Noah, through that transmission of personality that makes all cars extensions of their owners, has added some unique detriments to this already unappealing car. For example, he has organized his glove box so that his various glasses cases are positioned just so; his registration papers and his EZPass are to be placed in just the proper location before the glove box is closed. When he isn’t looking, I jumble the contents. He prefers that other drivers operate his car in a given rev range, and will complain if he believes you are lugging his engine. He also prefers that we not strike his car with fist, foot, or other car, which means that I now have to rearend him with my Protégé when he’s inside his apartment, instead of when we are in traffic on Storrow Drive.

I always knew the Saturn SL was a complete beast-piece, but after driving it some I would never recommend it as a beater—not when you can get a Protégé, or a CRX, or a Corolla, or a DSM for very close to the same money. I expect that someone at the Pansy Patrol will review the 1994 Mazda Protégé very soon, but let me say in closing that it is a wonderful beater, among the best, and that nothing anyone else on this site says can change that.