Recent automaker releases have brought (or will bring before long) a new Hummer, new Ford Bronco, new Toyota Supra, new Nissan Z, new Honda NSX and even a new Gordon Murray F1-inspired road car. But I’m still mad that we never got these two compact Chevy sports cars from 2012, for example.
If you’re on the internet, you’re here to get mad. Whether you like it or not, by the time you log off, you will be more upset than when you logged on. That’s the magic of the web. I would like to invite you to now channel some of that madness into the comments of today’s Question Of The Day, which is very meta: What Are You Still Mad About?
On Tuesday morning, I suddenly remembered that General Motors once showed off two stunning compact sports car concepts aimed at younger car buyers. It was an effort to inspire a new age of enthusiasts — and probably an attempt to recreate the success of the Mustang and Camaro for a modern audience.
The Chevrolet Code 130R was reminiscent of something like an Americanized BMW 1 Series. It was a small, rear-drive two-door sport coupe powered by a turbocharged 1.4-liter four-cylinder engine with a mild-hybrid setup making around 150 horsepower. It was to be based on the Cadillac ATS platform, and GM claimed it would have been available with a six-speed manual transmission.
The other compact sports concept from the Detroit auto show that year was the Chevrolet Tru 140S, which had the same base 1.4-liter four-cylinder engine but was otherwise totally different. It featured a front-wheel-drive layout built on a stretched Chevy Cruze-Volt platform, with styling clearly inspired by more expensive exotic cars (and strong hints of the Mitsubishi Eclipse). Its Volt platform also meant it could have been been boosted by more significant hybrid power than the Code 130R offered.
So yes, we’ve gotten many, many good cars over the last few years, and I’m not going to complain about any of them right now. Instead, I’m going to ignore all the good and remember the bad, and it’s the long-lost 130R and particularly a hybrid 140S that really make me mad. What about you?
