gavriil

Not to be outdone by Pontiac's Solstice, GM's Bowtie Boys are quietly developing their own small 2-seat sports car.
The as-yet-unnamed concept is being referred to as "Son of Corvette," as it borrows styling cues from that Chevy icon. The car is intended to be inexpensive, have an open top and be fun to drive. It has a vertical slash in the front fenders and creases that run toward the rear, similar to the Corvette. At the rear, the deck and bumper are more rounded and look less aggressive than the Corvette, but they are still sporty.

Those nacelles that fit behind the headrests on the Pontiac Solstice show up on this model too. You might wonder why General Motors would develop two similar cars of the same size from different divisions. The company intends to spread its platforms around to different divisions as a way of keeping costs down. In keeping with that platform-sharing philosophy, the little Chevy gets the same 4-cylinder engine and rear-wheel-drive powertrain as its cousin, the Pontiac Solstice.

Source: www.PopularMechanics.com

cusdaddy

Looks pretty good, but I think I like the Solstice design better. Not sure why this car is needed though... They should go with the Nomad instead

bl^5

Pontiac, Chevy and Saturn. They are going to saturate the market. Resale value will be LOW. I will be replacing my weekender ('94 Mercury Carpi XR2) with one of these (used) in '06 or '07.

charliemike

Seriously though, other than impact on perception of "value", I don't think GM gives a rat's ass if they have 40 versions of the same car and that drives down the used car market ...

Though I think that they should consider it. If a year old low mileage Pontiac GP is about $10k less than a new one, umm ... That's a no brainer.

Chaptorial

Wonder how well it will do against the S2000.

Looks pretty sweet.

gavriil

The fact that there would be a saturation of Kappa-spawns was expected. That's the only way they can make this platform break even (they actually claim it will be profitable).

The real secret of the Kappa platform hides behind the fact that it will be used by European subsidiaries. Even Alfa will base its next Spyder (and who knows what else) on it. When I thought of that, it made sense. Othewise, there is no way you can expect the R&D of a new platform be profitable from the Saturn Curve and the Solstice. It would have been a sore loser financially.

titan

I'm with you on spreading it around to Europe, and I don't have a problem with a bunch of little kappas running around here... But GM should really diversify the offerings on the platform like I thought they were orginally doing with the Nomad and Curve. This car is way to close to the Solstice, which in my opionion is damn near perfect. Another 2 seat, 4cyl, rwd, open top two door with similar size to the Solstice is a big mistake, and the general public gonna take this as doing what GM has been doing for years... their gonna see these cars as different versions, or twins. The Kappa platform is flexible, and it's wheelbase can be lenghened. Why not have the Nomad? This car is a mistake.