NAIAS: Chevrolet Sonic

One of the most pervasive memes that seemed to unite the independent thinkers covering the North American International Auto Show was that this year’s Detroit extravaganza offered “no surprises.” The lesson of this “Detroit Consensus”: clearly the motoring press doesn’t spend much time in the current, unloved Chevy Aveo.

The first time I clapped eyes on official images of the Aveo’s replacement, now called “Sonic” for the North American market, I reckoned

They show a subcompact that’s definitely less showcar-ish than the Aveo RS concept from NAIAS, but is still in the computer-generated “uncanny valley” between the realistic and real. Or maybe I’m just getting used to the idea of a halfway-appealing Aveo.

At times, the neon-lit floor of Cobo Hall seemed to be an “uncanny valley” of its own, but my first encounter with a touchable “real life” Sonic confirmed that the idea of a “halfway appealing Aveo” is indeed something that we must get used to.

The exterior proportions may not be to everyone’s taste, as a short rear overhang combined with a relatively longer front overhang and a bulbous nose is distinctly different from the “one-box” look that defines most of the subcompact segment. Some observers found the Sonic’s front end a bit too “pushed in” for their tastes, but the overall design gave a strong impression of chiseled solidity. In contrast to the more Japanese-influenced designs of the Wellburne era, the Sonic exhibited more of a European aesthetic. If the extroverted Chevy Spark city car mated with a first-gen Audi A3, the results might well look something like the Sonic.

Inside, the design was more typical of Chevy’s recent direction, with one notable exception: the out-of-control button proliferation that plagues newer GM interiors has been reigned in for Sonic, which sports one of the cleanest consoles in General Motors-dom. Nowhere is this more true (or appealing) than the Sonic’s gauge cluster, which seems to have been lifted from a classic Japanese design: the Suzuki GSX-R sportbike. A large analog tachometer dominates the left side of the cluster (a truly heartening sight in this era of disappearing manual transmissions) while a simple LCD digital display on the right side handles the rest of the readout duties.

We’ll have to wait for a road test to confirm whether this pleasingly retro- and superbike-inspired display works as well as it looks, but it’s one of GM’s few truly bold interior design gambles in recent memory and it hints at considerably more sporting pretensions than the Aveo ever reached for. Interior quality is also drastically improved in the show-floor examples, with class-competitive materials and a solid sense of quality assembly… although again, we’ll need to feel up a production version before revoking the Aveo’s “penalty box” card.

And as for that name, a GM rep confirmed that Sonic is a North American nameplate, and that this model will be called Aveo in most of its other global markets. Outside of this continent, the competition has apparently allowed the idea of a “halfway appealing Aveo” to become much less surprising than it is stateside. But, noted the GM man, GM has made a long-term commitment to the Sonic nomenclature in the US. Was it a coincidence that he had read Paul Niedermeyer’s seminal editorial “Name And Form”? I’d like to think not.