Tx_Phantom

Check it out here. Won't beat the S in performance or reliability, but still not a bad looking car, especially with the target price at under 20K.

Solstice

marcucci

Performance vs. price is hard to beat. If the quality is anything like recent GM cars, too, it will turn out I think to be an excellent value and a HUGE tuner car... especially at that price point.

Not bad looking, either.

Tx_Phantom

You know the other day a thought occured to me... I always her people saying on the forum how uncommon our cars are... Then I thought... Miatas caught on, Z3/Z4s caught on, Boxters caught on.... You see a ton of other roadsters that caught on, except the S. Then I thought, why is this car different? Then it hit me - this is the only one that is not offered in an automatic...

Do you think the demand for an S would be 100x higher if offeren in a wimpy automatic?

marcucci

No. Because it would be unbearable with an automatic. Not so much with the 2.2 but much moreso than the others.

The price point is too high for a "Honda" as well (at least a car of this type). It's an image problem that Honda has always had in the US.

Kaiser

I'm sure a LOT more middle-aged women would buy them if they did..... thank GOD that they don't

I like having a somewhat unusual car and I LOVE that they haven't (significantly) compromised the next-best-thing-to-a-racecar design philosophy by allowing crap like an auto tranny.

Same sort of thing with the Xterra - they could have sold a lot more of them in the first few years if they'd offered leather and a bunch of plushy crap - but they intentionally left that stuff off to keep the price down and to make it clear that it was a serious outdoor-y vehicle and not another soccer mom wagon (though the women bought 'em in droves anyway and they eventually caved on the leather etc etc... at least it was pure in the beginning!!!)

(p.s. nothing against middle aged women, really... [ actually I quite like 'em ]... I just don't want to be mistaken for one when I'm driving down the road)

QUIKAG

I think the Solstice is great. The more competition, the better. Of course, I don't think the base Solstice is competition performance-wise to our S's. However, the turbo Solstice, I believe, is going to give us a good run for our money.

turbolane

Wow... can't believe they got it so close to the concept! Perhaps the success of Dodge and Chrystler's efforts are going to improve the entire US auto industry.

I did notice that the basic price point is VERY basic... wonder what the car will cost when you add in "extras" like power, cruise, air conditioning and floor mats? You pretty much have to add in all the extra options to get the same feature set as the S and by that point I bet you will be very close to (or even over) 31K.

Of course, it does have Bilstein coilovers... that's an upgrade for us

C6400hp

There is something about that funky pontiac grill that just turns me off. Other than that I think it is probably a great value at MSRP and looks like it should be alot of fun. If I were buying, no doubt that I would take the saturn sky over the solstice.

turbolane

Yea, I like the Saturn Sky pretty well...esp. the front grill. If it arrives close to it's concept it should go over well.

I just went and checked the updated specs on the Sky... guess what? Identical to the Solstice! Same engine, same suspension, same sub-frame ... at least from what I can tell.

Could be a boon for the after-market mod scene!

Tx_Phantom

I really like that Saturn Sky. A relative of mine had a saturn back in 1996ish and it was a POS though. He might have mistreated the car tho, who knows.