classic car

  When the Chevy Volt concept appeared on the 2007 NAIAS show floor, it drew much interest, though not as much as the Camaro concept, which manifested itself as the production Camaro this year. It was also a footnote compared to such cars that never happened such as the Ford Interceptor and Chrysler Nassau. But now, with electric technology being embraced by millions of people who don't care about driving experience and our government, many are taking a look at the Volt that they didn't before.

  What they see isn't what they glanced at on the Detroit show floor, to say the least. Almost every aspect of styling, many suppliers, and some technology has changed since the introduction of the concept, and now the Volt just looks like a wide Malibu instead of a muscular, if odd, sedan. Perhaps this is a good thing. The old styling was very controversial, with inoperable windows that kept extending down past the body line and rear-end styling that seems to remind me faintly of the Toyota IQ. Not to mention the fact that many of the features wouldn't have been street-legal. But Chevy wouldn't have got our attention with a boring sedan as a concept, right? So they gave us something that the Chevy Camaro may have been in sedan form if it wouldn't have gone the Mustang retro route.

  Now, looking back, that front end looks too sparse in comparison to the Hulking new designs seen on GMC, Lincoln, and Cadillac cars and is a bit out of date. The new car, though much more boring, seems more modern.  When the production-bodied Chevy Volt was revealed it wasn't exactly a party day by anyone's standards. But I think the styling of the new car has merit. It looks cleaner, less quirky, more practical, and altogether more modern. Safety standards come into effect here, mandating larger headlights, eliminating the inoperable windows, which wouldn't have worked anyways from a stylistic or practical standpoint, and making some structural changes. Some other changes include Suppliers for many components, some of which haven't even been secured by this point. Currently GM is expecting more demand than supply, and hopefully they won't destroy them like they did to the EV-1, which took its name from the more stylistically daring 1985 Saab Concept, which used solar panels to power cooling and heating fans.