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Monday, August 08, 2005

Solstice Spotting

I went out for a walk in my neighborhood, and I spy a brand new Pontiac Solstice nestled in next to the neighbor's Chevy Malibu. It was most likely a GM exec car, as it did not have a manufacturer plate (??M ???) or a dealer plate.









The car is gorgeous.

Will it save GM? No, not on its own. But if GM keeps building cars with this much sex appeal, GM will save itself.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I saw one in Austin Texas a few days ago.

Anonymous said...

Nice! Is it MX-5 sized?

Anonymous said...

If...and that's a big IF...the General doesn't completely piss away this opportunity. Delay after delay after delay. A friend of mine at a Pontiac dealership here in San Antonio turns several shades of purple and chips a tooth gritting his teeth every time somebody mentions Solstice. Kinda like he used to a couple of years ago at the mention of Oldsmobile. Remember them? The company that "owned" the 80's with the Cutlass and were sacrificed at the temple of Chevrolet.
I hope Pontiac is successful...but not TOO successful!

Unknown said...

Re: Ben

My impression was that the car was a little larger than an MX-5, but most of that was probably height as opposed to length and width.

Cars.com reporst the Solstice as slightly larger in width and height.

Solstice:
Exterior length 157.2"
Exterior body width 71.3"
Exterior height 50.1"

MX-5:
Exterior length 157.3"
Exterior body width 67.7"
Exterior height 49.0"

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry, I think its sinfully ugly. Of course I hate the PT Cruiser and HHR or whatever that monstrosity that Chevy sells is called...

Anonymous said...

have a invoice dated 04/04/05 with deposite down, waiting waiting. would like to know why first 1000 are being delivered b-4-mine as they were ordered 10 days after.
canada sucking to big one once more
the u.s.a. marketing program comes b-4-all others?
CANADIAN WAITING!!!

GMTMan said...

It's a GM-owned vehicle, not a privately-owned Solstice.

The way to tell isn't always an M-plate. Look in the driver's side lower corner of the window.

There's a rectangular tag there; usually it reads GM NAO. If it's in Red, it's a company vehicle. If it's in blue, it's an early build (limited access) or prototype (this usually is on GM prototypes with M-plates).

If there's a blue circular tag in addition, it's a Captured Test Fleet car. CTF is where GM releases a given number of it's new vehicles into the company vehicle pools, and are driven by employees as their regular vehicles. This helps give some additional real-world insurance before launch, and is always done with new product.

I can't see the CTF tag in the pictures posted, but most of the Solstices around SE Michigan are wearing them. I'll hazard a guess this one did too.

Great blog, btw. Keep up the good work.

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