Is the Lbs/HP (click on bottom) the most important graph? If so the Viper is in the lead followed by the Corvette.:confused:

Saw one of these at the Toronto Auto Show. Damn good looking car, especially for a Pontiac. However I find myself saying that frequently about really cool new designs which end up looking common and stale after a couple years on the road: PT Cruiser, Mitsubishi Eclipse, lots more. Truly good designs look good for decades (original T-birds, Countach, and of course the 911).

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1113590891.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1113590917.jpg

Here is a link with some spy photos of the test mules for the 'performance' version. Note the intercooler sticking out the bottom...

http://www.solsticeforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1497

looks like ass, that grill is hideous. Looks like someone designed it after watching too many episodes of SpaceGhost:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1113591270.gif

Like almost all the cars out of Detroit, it looks like an aging hot-rodders idea of "modern". The Camaro belongs in the same boat: bland, bare, and unappealing.

This Soltice thing is a lame copy of a real roadster design:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1113591599.jpg

what the. .. !?

A solstice forum?

Okay, who's going to post the question, overe there, about "what's the bigges muffler that will fit? " . . .or maybe something about "best 20" spinners" :D

Kinda has that Bugatti look:


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1113590891.jpg

I'm not sold on the styling. I'll wait untill I see the real thing. Also- I'm glad I never bought an early Fiero (fiasco?). By the time production ended, it wasn't that bad of a car, but it already had a reputation for being crap.

What's the story with the Fiero? Never heard it.

Fiero's (the original 4 bangers) looked pretty cool and were affordable, but they were anything but a serious sports car. They had the front suspension off of Pontiac's version of the Chevette. Just plain awful bump steer!

Fiero was a mid-engine 2 seater, with light-weight plastic panels.

(sounds like a good recipe)

. . . and they, somehow, made it into a mangy dog.

My understanding is the problem with the Fiero was that it was developed as a low-cost commuter car wearing the trappings of a sports car. And the sporty look led people to believe it was designed to be a sporty car...and when they found out it had commuter-car performance it was universally panned. As a sportscar.

The Fiero 6 cylinder GT was a blast to drive.

Early engine fires and the MR2 convinced Pontiac to drop it.

My best friend traded in his 68 GTO on a the very first Fiero in our twon back in 84. What a piece of crap!!!! We took it to Florida for my senior trip. Him, me and a big a$$ Mickey Mouse road back from Florida in that thing. Great gas mileage, though. We were basically bums and it was nice to use bottle return money to fill it up. It died one day and he sold it for like 300.00.

Think what you may, but the Kappa platform Sky/Solstice (Opel uses it too) is going to change how you view GM's performance cars. A GM engineer told me that it was designed with the possibility of the LSx V8 engine family nestling into an engine bay of one of these down the road.

Imagine a 400hp V8 Saturn roadster at under 3000 pounds.

E

I'll wait for that model!

Saw both the pontiac and the saturn roadsters at the denver auto show the other weekend, and wasn't really impressed with either exterior. The Saturn is at least an interesting design and manageable to look at. The pontiac just looks like crap IMO, very plasticy and fake feel to it up close. However, both interiors were pretty decently designed.

Pics:
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1113602412.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1113602441.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1113602459.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1113602478.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1113602527.jpg

-Ian

Ironic that you think the Pontiac looks plastic-y and the Saturn does not.... ;)

well, that's still not saying much, but i think they did a better job on the trim then pontiac did. At least looks like they didn't put it together using Legos or Kinex (sp?) or something.

Nobody else here has heard that all new GM cars today are "black box" equipped? Hooked to the air bag system, these boxes can play back to authorities what happened...throttle postion, brakes, speed, etc. after the air bags are deployed. I'll do a google seach, post a link if I find anything. I know the info is out there, it's just that I'm not good at working a search engine. The black boxes have been written about in Car & Driver, Road & Track, other car guy mags...(edit) That was easy...here you go, why I will no longer shop GM:
http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/200408/msg00134.html

I've read about the black box stuff too, scary stuff. One instance, a guy was going well over 100 in a Corvette and caused an accident. The black box data logging info convicted him, not that he didn't deserve it. The early ones recorded constant data acquisition in a continuous loop, not sure how long the intervals are, but upon airbag deployment the loop is saved for recovery later.
Solstice is a nice car for GM, I really can't believe it made it to production. I think by next year there's supposed to be a 250Hp version out, that should help. I thought the Saturn version was based on the Opel speedster, a car that has drawn comparisons to the Elise overseas, it's much more of a proper lightweight sports car. You can see a resemblence, but why waste it on Saturn? With a car like the Speedster in it's company, GM needs to release it in some form here.
http://www.basehead.org/wallpapers/cars/opel/opel_speedster.php