The exterior designers have made the Relay look like an International Harvester minivan, about as bland and neutral a look as you can get, with its horizontal-bar grille, and a big red logo stuck in it so it sort of looks like a Saturn product. (Rumors has it that this was to be the Oldsmobile version, but was switched over to Saturn late in the program.)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.