Car & Driver compares Solstices to Aztec as worst design ever

[Hattrick]

I must have subscribed to Car And Driver for 30 or so years. If it isnt a Porsche or BMW it aint squat. When the Corvettes started seriously kicking German and Italian butt for half the price they complain about the interiors or exclusitivity. I no longer subscribe.

[P.Gadget]

Let's see them get the hard top for this in the boot.
Bugatti Veyron Convertible Targa Photos Revealed | CarZi

Car and driver will give a good review to anyone who pays them well.

[sunruner19]

It also said in the article, that they were slightly inhibited when they first saw the concept car. Is this how they critique cars, slightly inhibited??

I fell in love with the coupe at first sight and had to have it. If I need to haul anything, I have 2 trucks that are built for that. The fact that I could not stow the top didnt change anything, since there was a soft top available to use if needed.

The staff at Car & Driver are obviously on bird juice

[Coupe 112]

I've thought about this thread all day since Sunruner posted it, and here is exactly, positively, and definitively why Caw and Drivel is flat out wrong about the Coupe and the quibble about the top:

The cheap-and-cheerful method GM employed by simply dropping the Coupe hardware into the existing bodywork did leave some non-functioning body gaps and resulted in the less-than-ideal removeable panel.

HOWEVER, the car is absolutely beautiful, and the design concessions that would have been necessary to incorporate a stowable or power hard-top would not only greatly compromise the car's looks, it would have made it muuuuch more expensive, and I would likely not have been able to afford it. Plus, the options it provides are just fine by me, since I use at as a daily driver first, and I have my open-air sports car on any of the many gorgeous days Austin serves up. A simple, soft tarp is stashed away for any unexpected squalls - just pull over and as they say around here, if you don't like the weather in Texas, just wait a minute.

In summary, I will submit the following indisputable proof that this car is well executed as-is. I have been keeping a list of cool cars in which the driver was looking at me:

Aston Martin DB9 Volante
Aston Martin Vantage Volante
Ferrari 430 Spider (convertibles are big in Austin)
69 Dodge Charger in immaculate condition

So there, C&D. If those clowns ever had to own a car for more than three days they would be dumping the Vee-Dubs and Beamers IMHO, just like some of my friends are doing because of lousy reliability (VW) and incredible expense to maintain (BMW).

[goofyboy65]

yea screw car and driver!!!

[wspohn]

You guys sure get wound up easily.

If you read what they said, it was perfectly valid and echoes the same criticisms I have of the coupe. Low stowage space (not that the converts are any better), and a top that you have to leave at home with the only alternative a ridiculously expensive and klunky Mechano set erect-a-top (I can just see myself assembling that abortion under a bridge in a down-pour).

Lucky they missed the cooling system designed by a chimpanzee....no, that gives too little credit to chimpanzees.

But so what? The cars have excellent handling in stock form, and they look just great (I admired the converts but it was only the coupe that enticed me to pull out my wallet).

I would have been just as happy if they had made the car a fixed roof without a removable panel, or a T roof like they had done before with the Fieros, so that you COULD have removed the side panels and stowed them (and precious little else) behind the seats, but hey - all cars have flaws. Not being able to stow the top isn't that big a deal for me and it is well worth the trade off for the superior styling (no offence, convertible owners) that I think will hold up very well over the years.

C&D is viewing the car not strictly as an enthusiast machine, and I think that is wrong. They didn't complain about the Lotus 7, which had no space, no roll up windows and no trunk. Think of these cars as a modern Lotus 7 equivalent!

[wmf246]

Originally Posted by wspohn You guys sure get wound up easily. But so what? The cars have excellent handling in stock form, and they look just great (I admired the converts but it was only the coupe that enticed me to pull out my wallet).

John


except, that if they had made a Sky coupe, i would have bought the Sky.. (that way i could have the outside temp readout i covet so much... )

Bill

[wspohn]

I didn't know that they had that!

At the beginning, I slightly preferred the more 'normal' nose styling of the Sky to the minimalist Solstice, but over time, I now find the Sky a little 'heavier' looking at the nose and I am happy with the nose of the Pontiac, although I could take either.

I like the interior colours of the Sky better, but all in all, I believe that the Saturns are going to be orphaned sooner and worse in terms of parts support than the Pontiacs are (hope I am wrong, of course), so we are probably better off owning a Pontiac.

[sandan03]

Originally Posted by jimbo That the coupe top did not fit in the car was a huge mistake. That is the reason right there that I did not buy one.

I know that Pontiac wasn't thinking this way, it was a coincidence, but for the Brits the idea of a hard top that does not fit in the car is not at all unusual.

The Lotus Elise comes as a soft top targa standard, a $1500 hard top (if you order one at purchase, $2500 otherwise) is an option. On the Exige, like the Solstice it has a removable roof, but the soft top (which functions exactly like the Elise's and is fully interchangeable) is optional.

Neither the Elise or Exige hard top fits in the car.

The way the Brits look at it, you set the car up for the season. Good weather comes, you take off the hard top, put it in it's storage bag, put it in a closet or the garage and forget it for the season. You just use the soft top.

Bad weather sets in for the late Fall, Winter? Rollup the soft top, put it away, and put the hard top back on for a few months.

They don't 'get' the whole idea of swapping hard/soft tops on a whim.

So my buying the Coupe with an optional soft top, to me, was no different than owning my Exige, with the optional soft top. No big deal.

That said, I agree the coupe suffers in execution. The coupe body SHOULD have made for more usable trunk space, but that's hardly the case, and the bain of this car, even 40 years from now, will forever be its overall lack of space to carry things, and the claustrophobic cabin with the soft top up or coupe. For crying out loud, there is a thread asking for advice on where to store loose change!!!

[wspohn]

As you mention British cars, it is worth mentioning that they had this sort of top arrangement in the early 1960s and that they were first, even though Porsche seems to want to think they were the creators of the Targa.

The Triumph TR-4 had a Surrey top that had a removable metal panel that would not store in the car, and a soft panel that replaced it, and the same sort of fixed rear compartment as the Solstice coupe has.





There was no fuss about the tops with the Triumphs because the canvas panel wasn't of any significant price and stowed away quickly and could be snapped in place just as quickly, so no one worried about not being able to carry the steel panel around with them.

If GM had made a cheap canvas top that fitted easily and cost $200 instead of the $1000 Erector set special, I'll bet the top would never have caused much comment.

[AppSt2008]

Originally Posted by wspohn I didn't know that they had that! At the beginning, I slightly preferred the more 'normal' nose styling of the Sky to the minimalist Solstice, but over time, I now find the Sky a little 'heavier' looking at the nose and I am happy with the nose of the Pontiac, although I could take either. I like the interior colours of the Sky better, but all in all, I believe that the Saturns are going to be orphaned sooner and worse in terms of parts support than the Pontiacs are (hope I am wrong, of course), so we are probably better off owning a Pontiac.

I agree with you here.

I went from being interested in Solstice to GXP to Sky RL and then back to GXP when I first became familiar with the cars.
Ultimately, I decided that for a roadster, the Solstice has much more of an ageless styling than the Sky does. The Sky came off as Vette-esque in its styling, but after thought, the lines were a little to sharp and hard for me.
Plus, referring to desirability, I think the Pontiac's history with performance bodes well for it, whereas the less-produced Sky appears as more of a blip in a history of good automobiles for Saturn, but no predecessor as far as heritage, in the company or styling over the history of the roadster. To be fair, it does have a competing style with the Lotus of recent history, but that is about it as far as I've seen.

Just my personal views, but I've seemed to find more of a "ricey" (for the Jap fans, I apologize) mod realm with the Sky's as well. Just not my thing, but doesn't mean it can't be for someone else!

[jeff465]

Originally Posted by lastoy The best way to show your displeasure with Car and Driver is never buy thier mag. I love my Solstice, and you can over come problems with truck space if you put your mind to it.

My girlfriend and I took a trip to Mount Rushmore in her '07 Solstice back in June of 08. We packed bathroom stuff, extra shoes, jackets, hats, and 5 days of clothes with laundry soap, camera with 2 lens and flash unit along with a very important condition. That condition happened on day 2 leaving Rochester,Minn. (nice city BTW). We drove from Rochester to Rapid City, SD with the TOP DOWN the whole way! . Thats over 600 miles. And we brought some nic naks home with us. I own a coupe and I love it. I don't give a damn if the panel doesn't fit in the back. I haven't taken the top off and don't have any desire to do so. If the removeable roof had been an option, I would have bought a coupe without it.

[lil goat]

Originally Posted by stang Wait! It didn't say that! They said they wished the coupe was never made (concept vs. reality). There reason was that 1.) the top panel didn't fit in the hatch and that 2.) it finished last in their test (against the new Z, a track only version of the RX-8, and C&D pinup girl the BMW 3-series). Gee, that was a fair fight. Yeah, real strong stuff.

Thank you I read the article too, and it only applied to the Coupe, and the article was talking about cars where the prototypes were very different from what ended up in production.

[LarryMJones]

My new coupe is cool. It's a toss up on what to drive on weekends. My C6 Vette or the Solstice.

If I have a lot of time I drive the Solstice Coupe cause a lot of people want to know what it is. I get more compliments on it than the worlds best sports car the C 6 Vette.

I am very fortunate to have both, and a Chevy TBSS (LS2 395 hp Vette Engine) for a daily driver.

LJ

[AppSt2008]

Originally Posted by LarryMJones My new coupe is cool. It's a toss up on what to drive on weekends. My C6 Vette or the Solstice. If I have a lot of time I drive the Solstice Coupe cause a lot of people want to know what it is. I get more compliments on it than the worlds best sports car the C 6 Vette. I am very fortunate to have both, and a Chevy TBSS (LS2 395 hp Vette Engine) for a daily driver. LJ

Wow! Talk about a stacked garage...Whew...