<VV> Saturn Sky - No Vair But Close! LITTLE CORVAIR

[Bruce Schug]

On Sep 30, 2005, at 9:10 AM, Dave Keillor wrote:

> Sorry, I don't think it's close to the Corvair.  The Solstice (and I 
> assume
> the Sky, too) has one show-stopper fault -- no luggage space!  My wife 
> and I
> like to take her Miata or one of the Corvairs on weekend or week-long 
> trips
> and we could never do that with the Solstice/Sky.  Also, the 
> Solstice/Sky
> outweighs the new Miata by about 400 pounds.  So I say to the General,
> "Close but no cigar."
>

Dave,

  You're right, the October "Automobile" lists the Solstice as weighing 
2,879. about 120 pounds more than my air-conditioned Monza and 390 
pounds more than the Miata. But they also list the 0-60 times as 7.3 
for the Solstice and 7.4 for the Miata. In the 0-100 times the Miata 
pulls ahead running 19.8 vs. 22.0 for the Pontiac.

But cars aren't just numbers. Most people seem to think the Solstice is 
very attractive. It's form is very pure and unadorned. The original 
Miata was the re-birth of the classic low-cost 2-seat sports car. Every 
iteration since then has only cluttered up the original design. They 
had it right in the first gen, the redesigns haven't improved it. The 
new one has those silly looking wheel bulges! Automobile's test of the 
Solstice was very favorable. At the end they concluded: "But today the 
bouquet goes to the Pontiac Solstice." One can only salivate at what 
the performance of the obvious blown 200+ hp Solstice and Sky will be. 
They will be closer to a Boxter in performance, than a Miata.

In the end, buying a car is a personal decision. One must decide which 
car they prefer or if they wish to also examine the Sky or other makes. 
You may prefer the Miata. Guys like me, who prefer to buy American cars 
that run on gasoline, not rice, will end up preferring the Solstice or 
the Sky.

But is the Sky or the Solstice today's Corvair? Hardly. They are 
two-seat sports cars. The Corvair was not, pure and simple. I would, 
however, point out that the Corvair has long been referred to as the 
"poor man's Porsche." In the Automobile article, they say: "This is a 
Pontiac that thinks it's a Porsche." That's about as close as it gets 
to being a modern-day Corvair.

Bruce

Bruce W. Schug
CORSA South Carolina
Greenville, SC
bwschug at charter.net

CORSA member since 1981

'67 Monza. "67AC140"