Our heart did not skip a beat, nor did we mistake it for an SUV. The sliding-door slots are a dead giveaway, as are the rear door handles, which are in the wrong place for an SUV. It's also too low to the ground to pull off the masquerade, with a 5.5-inch ground clearance and a 17.5-inch step-in height, about 3 inches lower than a typical SUV stance. These are not bad things, they're just not SUV things.
The long-wheelbase Relay's flanks have a uniform gray lower panel, like the one used on the Vue, all the way around the vehicle, and only a single strip of body-color trim down the side, with six discrete side windows. Both models ride on 17-inch tires and wheels; Relay 2 comes with steel wheels, Relay 3 gets painted alloy wheels.
The Relay has a steel body, not a plastic one like the Saturn coupes and sedans.
GM's new minivans, the Saturn Relay, Buick Terraza, Chevrolet Uplander and Pontiac Montana SV6, feature some styling and equipment differences, but are very much alike under the skin, sharing a single powertrain with a choice of front-wheel drive or all-wheel drive.
