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There have been a lot of questions about the interior quality of the Relay so I'm going to address that for much of today's entry. This minivan is really interesting because some of the materials are surprisingly nice and others seem very cheap. It's an odd mix but the average comes out ahead for the most part.

The gauges are very nice looking. They?e clean and modern looking and very crisp at night. Offset by the large yet substantial feeling steering wheel, the driver? view is not that bad. Then you have the center stack. If it weren? for the wood trim being so flimsy to the touch there wouldn? be much to complain about. Yes, the dials aren? anything spectacular but they do their jobs, have a nice weight and ease of use to them etc. I just wish they had used the same faux steel from the steering wheel instead of this really lame wood trim. For some reason it has a tight fit and feels expensive on the wheel, while the wood does not.

What I really, really like is the black dash molding and leather trim on the doors. These are really top-notch materials for a minivan of this caliber.

Everyone is really ripping the Relay apart for not being a Honda or Toyota but it isn?. For a GM product to have this nice a dash I? pretty impressed.

There are clunky plastics on the cupholders and cubbies that I?l show tomorrow but like I said, Saturn gets it half right for the most part. And I haven? even tackled the two automatic sliding doors, nice captain chair seats and other niceties. Nor have I detailed the really horrible column shifter, poor visibility and other annoyances.