Z-06

From what I understand the Indian version is supposed to have a diesel so putting it in USDM should not be a biggie apart from emissions.

Even after the gerrymandering the style was changed to something less palatable compared to the original concept, which not as great was at least less busy and clean.

[source: Motor Trend] First Drive: 2012 Chevrolet Spark European Spec Big Enough to be Surprisingly Engaging December 06, 2009 By Paul Horrell Chevrolet likes to pretend that the Spark is the car you chose. The first hint of its design came as a two-door concept version called Beat, at the 2007 New York auto show. The Beat appeared as part of a trio of concepts, alongside a micro-crossover called Trax and a retro minivan, Groove. The public was invited to vote online as to which of those three concepts should turn be turned into a production car by Chevrolet's Korean offshoot GM DAT. GM claims 1.9 million votes were cast, the majority in favor of the Beat. MT asked GM DAT design chief Taewan Kim whether there ever really was a question of 'the customers choosing' which car would make it. He snorted an 'of course not' grin. "I had to log on and vote many times a day to make sure the result came out right." It would have been commercial suicide to have let the Trax or Groove win, because the sub-subcompact segment globally is utterly dominated by the hatchback body style. So in technology and basic architecture, the Spark is your vanilla hatchback. But its execution and design are pretty interesting, and it's certainly a competent player against price-matched opposition from anywhere around the world. It arrives in the U.S. in 2011 and will be the smallest Chevy ever sold here. Don't imagine it's an entrant in the mushrooming supermini class, and specifically don't confuse it for a Ford Fiesta rival. Oh no, it's a lot smaller, lighter, and cheaper than that. Chevy's first serious rival to the Fiesta -- and the Fit and Yaris -- will be the next-generation Aveo5, due late in 2012. t just 143.3 inches long in global trim (add an inch and a half for U.S.-spec bumpers) and comfortably under 1950 pounds, this all-new platform had to be carefully engineered to provide the right European NCAP safety result. And yet it isn't impractically small: Four six-foot Americans can fit painlessly between its 97.6-inch wheelbase. Designer Taewan Kim wanted the Spark to avoid the cuddly character of most Asian microcars, and put a note of aggression into the design. To make it look bigger than it is, he gave the Spark a strong, upright nose with tall headlamps and creased bone lines on the outer edges of the hood leading the eye back to the A-pillars. This design works well when viewed from any frontal angle, but if you see it from a slightly rear-profile point of view, the Spark looks like it's driven into a wall. In other design news, the side view is dominated by big wheelhousings and an additional shoulder at the rear. The cockpit narrows over the rear wheels, enabled by the placement of the door locks high in the door frames behind the side glass. Painted black in all models, the handles are effectively hidden, leaving the Spark's flanks looking clean. Inside, a simple motorcycle-type instrument pod sits atop the steering column. This idea was shown on the concept Beat. It uses a conventional speedometer, but everything else including a graphical tach and fuel gauge is taken care of by a simple mono LED screen. On the base model, where everything in the cabin is monotone gray, it has a depressing show-car-gone-wrong look. But in top-spec LT trim, where there are metallic accents and body-color trim garnishes, it takes on a cheery, individual, and modern aspect. The 1.2-liter four-cylinder revs sweetly enough, and rev it you must if you need to pass a truck or get up to speed on an on-ramp. But there's a difference between sweet and quiet: This is a noisy little car. Engine hum and tire roar battle to upstage each other depending on how coarse the road surface is or how hard you are on the throttle. Ah, well, the engineers promise a better NVH pack before the U.S. launch. We drove Euro-spec cars with a five-speed manual transmission. The ones now coming onto the Korean home market feature a four-speed auto, but it's hard to imagine they'll offer satisfactory highway performance. In the first few yards of our drive, the assault of tire noise led us to expect a poorly honed chassis. In fact, it's pretty able, the variant on 15-inch wheels proving agile but adequately supple, and the one with 155/70 14 tires (when did you last read of a car so shod?) smoothing away things even better, albeit with comically little grip. If you enjoy sliding a car around at low speeds, this is your machine. But dynamics aren't the point. Politically, the promise of the Spark must be doing Chevy a lot of favors in Washington right now. It's going to be a poster child in the corporation's attempts to convince legislators that GM is a new greened entity. Okay, we don't have an exact EPA economy number yet, but a gallon of gas is going to carry the Spark a looonnnnnnng way. What GM's P.R. materials aren't saying is that it won't do the CAFE numbers much good, because the Spark won't sell many units in the States. It's simply too small to make it onto most buyers' radar. Yet it's big enough to be surprisingly engaging.

Priceless Grandfather Buick

Yes. The new Aveo is due out in early 2010 and will hopefully go for sale late 2010 or early 2011 in US. Then there is the GMC Delta/Gamma too.

4? The last time I counted there are 6 of those esteemed members. Dodgefan (The Originator) Captainbooyah Jamesbond Cubitar WhiteKnight 66Stang It spread like swine flu and now seems to slow down.

PCS. Are you teasing or are you showing us the future like OOD?

Two Red CTS-V on two different roads. Felt like deja-vu.

Good news. Does that mean you are now moving to the old country? Wish you best of lucks and continue posting here.

Some saint told a certain Whiteknight to be patient. Wonder who that saint was?

To give credit to Mini, Mini had always proclaimed that the E leases were for "hands-on" testing from customers, so these reactions from customers should not be served as complaints but rather feedback/observations/results of their testing. While I am not saying Volt will be glitch-free, judging by the hours logged by the testing and development team, Volt will have a lot of data in its favor before the product is handed down to end users.

100% A+. The trick was the photo of the Crapry when Honda Civic was still on the Menu.

Z Tell me about your Corvette.

Not bad, not bad at all. Glad to have Reuss as GMNA and Lutz getting back to product. The only glaring omissions I see are Welburn and Nesbitt. I wonder especially about Ed. I hope their status quo stays.

Sorry Camino. I think you should put the bank in its place, if you find the entire act illegal.

When I hit "View New Content" while on a member profile page it returns with, "Sorry No, New Content Found."

Hey!!! Don't put Mr. Newsfeeder under the Reputation Sword. If his reputation goes down people will not see the entire article.

+1. You gotta click it or ticket.

Black Porsche Panamera Turbo. God that thing is severely disproportionate.

Olds, I personally think it is a good system - something which will lead to the increased accountability and credibility to the site. There are a couple of issues that I think we should elaborately address. 1. There are members who post trolls regardless of the warn levels issued by the administrators. What do you recommend for such posters? I personally think such members will not heed to the ratings they receive. Do you think continual posting of trolls when the rating is "Poor" should effect in increase in the warn level? 2. What if there is a personal rivalry between some members resulting in degradation of the other member's post? How can such an issue be addressed? Do you think we should restrict the ratings given by one member to the other particular member per day to like 2 or 3? I mean if the post is real bad it will show by votes received by multiple members. I just think it should be reasonable to reduce the personal bias by some members to other particular members with whom they do not see eye to eye.

Chrysler would have had something on their hands here. Oh well!!

I find the virtual title real surprising. It is the state that generates the title not the bank, but the bank holds it and it is given to the owner after the loan is completely paid off.

Most of the hemorrhage is because of the construction industry and agricultural business being down, which takes bulk of their business. You should see the level of development and technology gone into the respective companies with the effort of slashing costs under these guys. They are good decision makers and have astute knowledge of political, social and economic dynamics.

No Ghosn please. Lane and Owen are fantastic and truly worthy.

Why cannot the heads move at different times?