I know, I know... this blog is supposed to focus on the happenings of the SL2, but I felt the need to give the daily driver a touch of the limelight. Today the SW2 reached two milestones - fourteen years in our family and 350,000 miles on the road.
For those that may not know, this '95 Saturn SW2 is my third daily driver following in the line of a decrepit '93 SL2 (it was all I could afford) and a '96 SC2 (it was becoming too much like another project. As of January 21st it resides in Rosendale, NY). My acquisition of the SW2 heavily overlapped a long hiatus of driving the coupe. It quickly became the regular fall back vehicle while I struggled to make the SC2 orderly. As problems continued to crop up, the more I'd find myself driving the wagon. Eventually I became frustrated enough with the coupe to throw a for-sale sign on it (in retrospect, even if I had made the coupe road worthy it still would have needed too much work for my to be happy with it). Prior, the SW2 had been regular transportation for my Dad. He purchased it on February 28th,1997 with only 41,920 miles. In 1997 this car still sold for $14,735 dollars, compared to the $1300 eventually paid for my SL2. Unbeknownst to me, this car would go on to influence my admission to the Saturn community and the purchase of the SL2 that this blog is all about. Around that time the local Saturn dealership (Portsmouth, NH) was an SPS distributor and was sponsoring an employee's race-prepped '96 SL2, a car that Dad became lightly involved in. Dad, despite having vowed to "never lay a wrench on it", quickly started duplicating basic modifications from the SPS catalog - I recall walking in on him with the shifter in the vice and a hacksaw in hand. These modifications would go on to include a lot of one-off pieces, namely the tubular stainless steel rear lateral-links and trailing arms that stirred the forums. This car also features the original hand made center vent gauge bezel that was briefly replicated and made available for sale.
