We’ve watched The General trying to reinvent their marketshare and there is no question that they’re working hard. Here in The Garage, I’m wondering if they are about to make a giant brand image blunder. The rumour floating around is that they are close to launching a V6 Corvette coupe based on the Kappa platform. This platform is the base for the Saturn Sky and Pontiac Solstice. Wow, talk about diluting the strongest brand in GM’s arsenal.

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Earlier this week I was watching the net hard trying to find results from the Pontiac Solstice’s first race, but yesterday I got busy & one of the big guys beat me to it!

Race prepped by Phoenix Performance and driven by Andrew Aquilante, the Solstice headed out to it’s first ever race in the SCCA’s SSB class at New Hampshire International Speedway on May 6th. What a debut it was. Qualifying 2nd, the 18 year old driver was only 9 one thousandths of a second off the pole sitter’s time. Press releases haven’t given any actual race details, but when it was all said & done the car finished in 3rd place, only 1.5 seconds behind the leader.
This is actually the first Club Sport Package Solstice off the production line, so a podium finish is a big boost to the program. It’s likely that the other 2 podium cars are fully sorted racers with a couple (at least) of seasons under their belts.

The teams running Mazdas had better have some tricks up their sleeves, or else they are going to get steamrolled once the Solstice package is fully sorted.