Culture|Garage

The unveiling of the Pontiac Solstice Coupe was another one of the autoshow surprises. I liked the Solstice, but I am not a huge fan of ‘verts. I wasn’t really waiting with bated breath for the unveiling.

But when it pulled in behind Lutz, I just stared in a lusting fashion. This car is just chiseled. When I spoke with Jose Gonzalez, the lead designer on the Coupe, he said his inspiration was sculpture… and it shows. Round of applause to Mr. Gonzalez, because he pulled this off extremely well.

I am not a Coupe guy, mainly due to the impracticality, but beyond that, there are very few coupes that I find attractive and they are limited to pretty much the Porsche Cayman S (breath taking drive) and the BMW Z4 Coupe. The Solstice certainly derives some of its cues from both those cars.

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Luckily it doesn’t derive the price tag, or that’s the rumor, it was hinted that the car will still come in under $30k.
50 Cent came on stage to chat about the Coupe and brought up the pre-rehearsed point that the Coupe is faster than the Boxster. But didn’t really give any context.

But the pot shots didn’t stop there, when speaking with Mr. Gonzalez he chuckled and said that unlike the Miata, this isn’t a car you are embarrassed to tell the guys that you drive. He went on, that the goal was to be seen as a serious sports car for the weekend warrior. I am pretty sure it will fit that pair of pants.

David Poniatowski, Product Manager of Solstice and the Vibe, gave me a personal analogy; you go to a toy store, you move to the Hot Wheels section, there are literally 100’s of cars to choose from, but inevitably a few select ones will just stand out from the crowd. You just look at it, say I want that and pull it from the shelf. And that’s the goal with the Solstice.

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