2006 Pontiac Solstice Test Drive

A Roadster Even Your Kids Can Afford

Finally, some competition for the affordable and fun Mazda Miata, even if the heavier Pontiac Solstice suffers from some lethargy.

The just-introduced 2006 Pontiac Solstice starts at $19,420 and it's worth every penny. The base price doesn't include air conditioning, anti-lock brakes and other expected amenities, but few cars offer such style and top-down fun for the money.

The Solstice is one of the most stylish convertibles on the road at any price. Its clean design rivals that of the twice-as-expensive Porsche Boxster and is more imaginative than the Mercedes-Benz SLK. The Solstice summarily trumps the familiar and conservative look of its only direct rival, the new-for-2006 MX-5 Miata.

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Much of this is because the Solstice is a line-for-line production version of a handmade concept car by the same name that traveled the auto-show circuit in 2002. Concept cars — essentially no-holds-barred styling exercises — can bring out the best in an auto company's designers.

Typically, the concept cars that do go into production are massaged, mellowed and sometimes even mutilated in the process. Their cutting-edge styling succumbs to manufacturing necessities, the economic realities of full-scale production, and the meddling of tasteless suits and bean counters.

Not the Solstice. For one thing, Pontiac developed an entirely new twin-tube platform — like a scaled-down Corvette chassis — to mount the body and running gear, rather than altering the stunning show-car's design and making suspension and power-train compromises to accommodate an existing chassis.

General Motors' revolutionary way of inexpensively shaping body panels, called hydroforming, also helped ensure that the striking lines designers penned for the concept car would see production. Hydroforming is unique in that rather than stamping body panels out in expensive-to-make series of male and female die sets, it uses one simple die per panel and progressively forces sheet metal against it with 50,000 psi of water pressure.

It takes more time than conventional body panel manufacturing and isn't suited to banging out 150,000 cars a year. But for a niche vehicle like the Solstice, which is expected to sell somewhere between 20,000 and 35,000 copies annually, it works wonderfully.

And to keep the let's-make-a-few-little-changes executives at bay, GM VP Bob Lutz, the overlord in charge of new-product development, made it clear that the Solstice was his lion cub and would grow up to symbolize a new era of imagination and excitement at Pontiac.