You might not expect that with a turbocharger, but there it is. The engine is just as impressive as the ride in the roadster. These tires make for much quicker turns and faster transitions than the Eagle RSAs of the same size on the base Sky. Perhaps the biggest handling advantage the Red Line has over the base Sky is the P245/45R-18 Goodyear Eagle F1 GS2s. The basic four-wheel SLA suspension geometry is shared with the regular Sky. The coil springs are also unique to the Red Line, which sports a balance that is almost 50/50. To get all this, engineers took the basic Sky suspension and cranked it down just a little, adding 6.1 millimeters more hollow front stabilizer bar, making it 33.3 millimeters, and 1.2 millimeters more to the rear, for 25.4 millimeters.

Okay, maybe we would give just a little more feeling through the fast-acting steering wheel and the hydraulic power rack-and-pinion, too, but that’s a tradeoff for the comfort. Other than that, it is a pleasure to pilot. The only real handling criticism for the Sky Red Line is a slight bounciness after it hits a bump, something we would tie down with a little more rebound control in the coil-over Bilstein monotube shocks, if we knew what we were doing. “I think it’s a lot more than a consumer would expect for this kind of car.” “At first we were looking at electronic stability control and the limited-slip differential as options, then we said, ‘Wait, let’s just do it right from the start,’” said program manager Darren Post, who rides sport bikes when he is not tuning Saturns. A limited-slip differential is also standard, a must-have for a serious sports car. The standard vehicle stability control system has three settings depending on your mood. A unique torque beam connects the transmission, driveshaft and differential to eliminate two mounting points to the frame that were causing too much NVH in early prototypes. The ride isolation is surprisingly pleasant without being numb. The Sky Red Line just floated over them, as it floated over everything else on smooth sections of Highway 101. Most have miles of filled-in potholes that any challenger could cite in the next municipal election. None are what you would call billiard-table smooth. All these roads are finely twisted around hilly contours their whole length. We drove a few Sky Red Lines through the canyon roads outside Santa Barbara, California, specifically Foxen Canyon Road, Ballard Canyon Road and Old Coast Highway, where it separates from Highway 101 just uphill from the ocean. In fact, had Saturn added some more storage pockets in the cockpit, you could unreservedly recommend the Sky Red Line to most moderate performance-minded buyers in the segment, all but the hard-core stopwatch clickers. After your 24 hours of whatever, your competitors would be perhaps beaten and sleepy while you could spring from the cockpit, if not the podium, ready to disco (if you’re really serious about racing this Red Line, do it at Mid-Ohio, where a lot of the suspension tuning took place). The tradeoff with the Sky Red Line is that it would still be within a few ticks of the competition’s lap times while being several ticks ahead in ride comfort (not to mention style). The Honda S2000, Mazda MX-5 (Miata) and BMW Z4 could probably all get around your garden-variety handling course just a bit quicker. There are competitors to the Saturn Sky Red Line that could probably lap your favorite racetrack faster.

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