The hottest of last years trio is showing its production skin. Voted by the public as the clear favorite the Chevy Spark will hit Europe next year while making us wait until 2011. The Beat concept car had a great fun aspect to the design and could really help reach out to the youth market, much more so than the current Aveo.
We were excited to hear that the Beat, now Spark would make it to the U.S. and at first glance thought they did a great job bringing it from concept to production. The Camaro concept did a great job growing from concept car to production. I believe the Spark could have been a bit closer to the concept Beat. Take a look at what has changed and see if you agree.
It may look like Madden went crazy with the red ink, but we still think this car has potential. We were just surprised that when you looked beyond initial preception, how much has changed. Sadly we will never know why all of these things changed and just hope that there were reasons beyond the power of a designers to challenge.
Obviously one of the biggest changes is the addition of 2 more doors. And the fact that there is just a lot more going on. The thicker body areas on the concept help give it some breathing room as well as make this tiny car look bigger, tougher and stronger. The car definitely lost its confidence with the smooth sweep of the front end and the rounded corners. The pointed front end and crisp lines of the Beat will be missed.
The rear view is actually pretty close. The new rear wing thingy kills the Spark. Could they not find a glass mounted wiper for production?
They did a nice job on the interior. I do not know the intended price point, but I assume it will be in the 15g range of small cars. For this price I think it looks pretty good. I am not really sold on the “motorcycle inspired” cluster. Cool idea but it looks like a cheap plastic box with some numbers. Need more detail shots. Changeable trim plates will help unite the exterior and interior together with color. This is a nice welcomed touch.
Overall this will be a quality attempt for a Chevrolet small car. The joke of an Aveo will be gone!
Uhg, I still can’t stand that grill myself – makes everything Chevrolet build look like it wants to be a pickup truck. But I’ll forgive it that so long as it kills off that ghastly Daewoo Kalos, sorry Chevrolet Aveo. I don’t like the interior much myself, that instrument panel looks too much like an afterthought and I dread to think what they will do for RHD markets (Use the same one?). Side and rear of the car look quite nice though, particularly the rear light clusters surprisingly. Looking at the front again, ignoring the grill, I’m inclined to think this thing will get quite a good pedestrian safety rating from EuroNCAP when they get there hands on it – that’s always a good thing.
I really like this car and hope it does make it to the US. I think it’s still closer than most to the original concept. Yes, I don’t like some of the differences like the extra doors. BTW, there seems to be a production 2 door version as an Opel Spark in Europe.
As for the grill, some designers seem to get into a rut to maintain a family image. For example, I think the Dodge Charger’s grill looks more a Ram truck than the original Charger RT concept.