Well, almost direct. Legal mumbo-jumbo required small changes to lights, front bumper, and suspension, but none of the good stuff that made the Astra the second-best-selling car in Europe has been compromised. In four or two-door hatchbacks, these are the best five-seat small cars ever to leave a Saturn showroom.

The Belgian-built U.S. Astra gets just one engine offering, a 1.8-liter four-cylinder; in Europe choices include three diesels among the slew of engines but Americans may not comprehend a stylish, good handling coupe that gets 50 mpg because it won't cross an intersection to the next traffic jam in 0.8 seconds.

The four-door Astra is offered as an entry-level XE or upper-level XR; the two-door is XR only. At just less than $16,000 an XE uses dark gray cloth upholstery and has no AC, but it does include antilock brakes/traction control, tilt/telescoping steering wheel, cruise, one-touch front power windows, and some bits less common at this price: rain-sensing wipers, power heated mirrors, OnStar, automatic projector halogen headlamps, and lighted visor mirrors. You can add the AC and alloy wheels from the XR, plus stability control, automatic transmission, heated front seats and a dual-glass sunroof.

Fancier XR models have more and option groups: premium/leather cabin, sport/handling, and advanced audio. The two-door XR is most expensive ($17,875) because it's the best equipped; sport seats are added to the standard sport/handling package. Options are automatic, 18-inch wheels with performance tires, heated front seats, and the premium/leather and audio packages.

Our Astras come with 1.8-liter four-cylinder engine capable of 138 horsepower and 125 lb-ft of torque, numbers very near what Honda gets from their 1.8-liter Civic; Astra estimated fuel economy is a bit less than the Civic because the Astra is heavier. As a result the Astra is not a fast car, although in its favor the engine is always smooth and willing, it delivered 30 mpg without benefit of any freeway cruising, and the crisp handling means you don't have to slow to a crawl and re-gather momentum after every corner.

Despite being four inches shorter than a Civic coupe, the Astra has plenty of cabin space due to its hatchback design; even the two-door rear seat offers nearly five inches more legroom than a Civic coupe and you can put full-size adults in the back a lot easier. And since it's a hatchback, not a trunk, dropping the rear seats leaves nearly 38 cubic feet of space in an XR two-door, but watch out for the protruding baby seat anchors on the trunk side of the back seats because they will rip softer materials slid over them. The sleek two-door Astra is a fairly practical piece of machinery that can handle most daily chores or weekend road trips with aplomb; a four-door carts a bit more stuff but it isn't quite as stylish. It even tows more than a Malibu.

Lean back from the dash and the silver trim on the doors carries across the dash to the center column, resembling a giant, shiny "T" to break up the otherwise monotonous color scheme. Most of the panels are plastic, nicely textured and well put together, and the light headliner and fields of glass area keep it from getting dark and confining. Some will wish for more little bins and places to put things.

Easy-on-the-eyes amber illuminates the tach, speedometer and fuel gauge all clustered directly ahead of the driver and nicely contoured steering wheel. Stalks handle the typical controls — signals, wipe/wash, flash-to-pass — although in the vein of BMW they are electronic rather than mechanical so you get automatic three-blink lane change signals and the stalks are always at the same location.

At the center of the dash is an info screen with font size clearly legible from the rear seat, showing outside temperature, radio function, trip computer and so forth. If you have "instantaneous fuel economy" selected it shows miles-per-gallon while moving but reverts to gallons-per-hour when stopped; you'll have a much better idea where all that gas goes in traffic jams. Radio and climate controls are very simple to use and offer all the choice you need. The view outdoors is very good and even the rear roofline doesn't hinder visibility.

Front sport seats are very comfortable and are nicely bolstered so you don't slide about on the leather, and both front and rear seats have nice long cushions for max butt comfort. Rear-seat entry is aided by slide-forward front seats and the seat is broad and nicely angled, and with three headrests and no center hump in the seat you can carry three kids but adults are best limited to a pair. Back set riders get cupholders outboard of the seat cushion and pop-out under the center, reading lights, and coat hooks.

With only moderate engine output, torque steer is not an issue, the deftly-weighted rack-and-pinion sending the Astra in the direction pointed almost immediately. The "sport" suspension helps here, yet its' not so stiff that you'd prefer to be elsewhere on a bumpy road and doesn't cause squeaks and rattles to intrude. Suspension design is typical MacPherson strut in front and a torsion beam rear axle; less sophisticated and less expensive than a fully independent design but 99 of 100 owners will never know the difference or complain. Mark that 18-inch tire/wheel box and your XR coupe appears with stylish, easy-to-clean five-spoke alloy wheels wrapped in Pirelli PZero Rosso tires, a type you find more often on Jaguars and Mercedes than at this price point. And since an Astra is lighter than all those supercars, it sticks real well.

An Astra two-door with all the options just crests the $20,000 mark, not cheap by small-car standards but the Astra comes across as a little better looking and better driving than the average economy car.

(Whale, a longtime Ventura County resident, has been breaking parts for 30 years and writing about it for 22.)

2008 Saturn Astra XR 3-door

Engine: 1.8-liter DOHC I-4, 138 bhp

Length/width/height (in.): 170.5/69.0/55.8

Weight: 2,768 lbs.

MPG city/hwy/observed: 24/32/29.4

Base warranty: 3 yrs/36,000 miles

Price as tested: $20,330

Alternatives: Chevy Cobalt, Ford Focus, Honda Civic, Hyundai Tiburon, Mazda3, Mitsubishi Eclipse, Pontiac G5, Scion tC, VW Rabbit