The story
The Solstice began as Bob Lutz's first request after joining GM: a sketch by a young Franz von Holzhausen, rushed into a running show car for the 2002 Detroit auto show and put into production in Delaware in 2005 with remarkably little lost along the way. Underneath is GM's own steel Kappa platform, front-engined and rear-drive, not the Lotus Elise lineage that rumor still hands it. The base 2.4-liter engine is merely adequate. The GXP's turbocharged, direct-injected 2.0-liter, with 260 hp and all 260 lb-ft on tap from 2,500 rpm, transforms it.
From the driver's seat it feels low, wide and snug, with high sills, a short, positive shifter and front fenders swelling up on either side of a long hood. The stiff structure lets the suspension do its work, and when grip runs out the car lets go gently from the rear. The flaws are real: the folded top eats nearly all the trunk, and stowing it means climbing out. Yet at 1,350 kg (2,976 lb) in GXP form it hauls less weight per horsepower than a Miata of its day, and it still turns heads at every light.
