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A Chevrolet Spark concept set to debut at the Paris Auto Show shows a typical US-market subcompact in its natural environment… as imagined by a couple of particularly unimaginative Daewoo product planners. Anybody miss the PT Cruiser yet? [via Jalopnik]
33 Comments on “What’s Wrong With This Picture: Surf’s Up, Sparky! Edition...”
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Did they run out of wood as they approached the front of the vehicle?
My mother had a red PT with the wood treatment and shiny chrome wheels (I don’t remember whitewalls though) … car was cute… but this is not reflected in the Spark design exercise…
The original Woody wagons were based on a standard steel front end, usually up to the a-pillar, with the rest of the bodywork being made of wood. It was the later faux-wood wagons of the 60’s and 70’s with the vinyl wood decals on the front of the car. This Spark concept faithfully recreates the former. I could do without the wide white walls, but its otherwise interesting. Not interesting enough for me to want one in my driveway, but interesting none the less.
You’re right Jimal. And, actually, I knew that. But once the wood stopped being structure and cladding, and became plastic and film trim, it extended forward of the A-pillar for reasons of astetics and symmetry (I would guess) … and while the concept appears to go back to the roots, it just seems to come up short vis-a-vis the front fenders…
Full disclosure: One of my favorite cars ever was my parents’ 1969 cream-yellow Ford Country Squire … I was 9 the day my dad traded it in on a 1972 Chevy Kingswood (bought from Roger Penske!), and I remember going through the Kubler-Ross stages of grief (Denial, Anger, Bargining, Grief, Acceptance)…
Better get some curb feelers, Earl, or those Whitewalls aren’t gonna be purty for very long.
No I mean it, seriously. Have you seen how many aluminum wheels get smacked on the curb now-a-days? But on a more relevant note, that has to be the UGLIEST thing I’ve seen in many years. And if you’re gonna do that to that car, why don’t you just put full baby moons on it and call it done?
Based on conversations with my kids and their friends, there is no one under the age of 30 who properly appreciates wood trim. For that matter, is there anyone under the age of 60 who’s actually seen/owned a true woody? My Mom’s station wagon from the 70’s had the vinyl package, but actual wood? Nope. Fail.
And real wood requires a level of maintenance unfamiliar to most people – think maintenance for a wood boat or a boat with wood decks. Lots of sanding. varnishing. Wood isn’t a very durable automobile material.
I thought the whole point of surfers driving “woodies” was that the old (genuine)wood-bodied wagons were big enough for the boards to be transported inside the wagon.
Nope, the boards went on the outside, so you could get laid in the inside…
I think somebody made a comment in the Fiesta comments about having headlights reach all the way back to the windshield. Whether it would be Ford or Peugeot. Turns out it was neither.
Rather it was this plucky little thing with the Jane Fonda headband. Maybe this car will bulk up at the gym and become a roach.
The headlights reach far back because that is the way to get enough surface area for a satisfactory light. Yes, you can spend a lot of money for lenses and obtain a small surface area light but it’s not in the budget for this type of vehicle. The other way to get enough surface area would be make the front of the vehicle very vertical -but that would kill aerodynamics (and gas economy).
I call bullshit. Those kind of lights are just a styling fad. Nothing more, nothing less.
Ingvar, methinks you called this one correctly.
There are only three things on Earth visible from space. The Great Wall of China, the Superdome in New Orleans and the headlights on Chevy Spark. Dang, that thing’s ugly.
If Pontiac was still around, this could be the new Aztek.
Please…please…just make it go away…
That thing makes the Aztek look like a winning design! That, friends, is a feat of aesthetic engineering we never even thought possible. Well Done, GM! Well Done and Bravo!
Your choice of 1.9% financing or a lifetime supply of barf bags for everytime you have to look at it.
John
I laughed out loud. THIS is the reason why I read this blog. All the real news is great too, but sometimes you just need a laugh. And what better industry is better for a laugh than the automotive industry??!
I’m not getting a woody looking at that pic.
I’d rather walk than drive that POS.
Quick! Where’s my eye bleach?
I agree this looks hideous, but every time I see a Ford Flex, I think about a “Country Squire” edition with Mac-Tac wood. (seriously)
I love the idea! Dark paint, redwood. Freaking awesome image.
Good lord. It’s like a badly done, cheap imitation of a plastic Groucho Marx face appliqué (i.e. glasses with a nose and mustache), designed by somebody who read about comedy in a textbook.
I’m with Ingvar on the lights. Hate ’em.
But that image plays right into the French mentality. The French love quintessentially American stuff. Yes, it’s true. (Or at least it was as late as 20 years ago–I haven’t kept up that closely.) But when I was a kid in the mid-60s, we lived in Paris and there was a place called Le Drugstore on the Champs Elysees, a sort of high end imitation of the soda fountain atmosphere.
When some friends of my parents–two of the best economists in the country!–came to visit my parents on Cape Cod maybe in the late ’70s, when they left they took a bus straight to Niagara Falls, and from there they went straight to Texas.
There is this sentence I learned during the year in France–Le cowboy achete un hotdog a un self-service. They loved all of it. There was a French movie in the early ’60s, La Belle Americaine, about a big American car.
So another anonymous econobox is coming. Ya, I read the Cruze review and got to sit in an LTZ, and I was extremely impressed given its roots, who is making it, and the competition in this space. So fine, I’ll give this a shred of Devil’s advocacy – but holy ass crackers, the woody panels and whitewalls need to go. BLECH!
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!
Is the surfboard optional, in case you land in water when you get run off the road for driving this thing? You might be able to paddle it to shore.
For the love of god, GM, make Daewoo take the bowtie off this travesty before it cancels all the good karma you’re getting from the Cruze reviews.
One question. Upon closer inspection of the picture it looks like there is a hole in the paneling or door or whatever that is behind the rear window. Is that one of those stupid quarter windows or is it just an omission of material?
A bloated overweight Snuze and now this pig?
GM is staying true to its economy car class roots. General Mediocrity.
That image is seared into my retinas. Ouch. I think the only other car I’ve ever seen with the same what-the-fuck quotient was a Grand Touring Yugo back in the late eighties.
Haha, i love this thing! I would never buy one, but i hope others do so I can see it on the road, a rose among all the gray and black thorns.
While the PT woodie was not my cup of tea , it didn’t burn the eyes.This thing looks like contact paper from the dollar store was applied by children. Maybe the world needs a woodie version of the Acura RL? Anything to keep your eyes from focusing on that beak!