Well, she is home, safe and sound.

Tino at Saturn of West County picked me up at the airport and was one of the best salesmen I have dealt with or be in the prescence of in a very long time. He truly knew the definition of customer service. As soon as I got to the dealer he offered to buy me a drink (non-alcoholic of course) and offered to have some lunch delivered if I was hungry. I politely declined. He then introduced me to his finance director, Sandy Goldstein, who is another fantastic person to deal with and someone with whom I have been in touch over the past few weeks.

Took it for a test drive and she rode great, she would get up and go when I hit it...until I got passed by a prius. Turns out the IC pump is nearing its death. Something that wasn't a dealbreaker for me as it is a relatively simply fix. I am hoping to either have it fixed by the May 3rd GTG or at least have the Johnson pump in hand for a little friendly GTG install...

I called Valk about 10 minutes after I drove her off the lot and let him know haha.

The exterior and interior of the car are in near flawless condition, with the exception of a few minor scratches on the front bumper cover...which is to be expected over the course of 19k miles.

Final selling price ended up being 16,700 + tax out the door. Which to me is a fantastic price for a fairly low mile car with the previous owner using it as a weekender like most SRT6 owners.

Still haven't paid the tax as I have to do it up here in Illinois...but my overall experience with the dealership was fantastic. If anyone is in the market for a Saturn (I think there was a brief Sky v. Solstice discussion elsewhere) then let me know and I will give you his number and it is completely worth the effort to get down there. In addition, I told him that if he got anymore crossfires on the lot to call me and I would pass along the information so hopefully something may result from that.

The drive back from St.Louis (Chesterfield actually) to Chicago was fairly uneventful, just a nice cruise with beautiful weather until I hit my exit in Chicago...

The only excitement during thte trip was the Dodge Viper ACR that happened across my path. A couple thumbs up later and we were crusing together for about 30 miles....over the speed limit. I didn't do anything stupid especially since the IC pump was deciding when and when not it wanted to work....However, the ACR was quite beautiful and immaculately clean...He obviously loved the car.

Thanks to everyone who PM'ed me with links to SRT's in the area or that they were selling I really appreciate all the help. Thanks also to hawksview for all the help he gave me with the AeroBlue SRT negotiations that were miscommunicated.

I am looking forward to many future GTGs' in the SRT and many many more beautiful days with the permagrin shining.

I thought I had permagrin when I picked up my first Crossfire last April...this one is even bigger.

See everyone at the Crystal Lake GTG on May 3rd and the LET/Eurocharged track day on the 30th.

It is raining pretty nasty up here so I will try to get some pics up tomorrow (if it is nice) or sometime this week.

Thanks again for everything.