Meeting the Chevrolet triplets

This week we saw the unveiling of three concept minicars under the Chevrolet banner. From where I sat in the back of the crowded press conference, the sound was distorted, and it seemed that designer Ed Welburn was saying Chevrolet "Beast," "Crew," and "Trash." In fact, the names are Beat, Groove, and Trax. These are strictly design exercises, meaning that they are intended to be lookers, not drivers. In fact, if you looked underneath a couple of the cars, you could see plywood framework and metal braces.

These concepts are tall-roofed small cars, made for 1.0-liter engines and with seating for five. Like the Chevy Aveo but more in-your-face. In fact, all of these came from GM's Korean design studio, and if any are built it will be on a GM/Daewoo platform. The pictures are self-explanatory: The Trax looks foreshortened like a bulldog, the Groove like a version of the retro-modern HHR, and the Beat like a flying insect with its wings folded.

Apparently Chevy people came to refer to these three from Korea as "the triplets," and for the introduction Chevy produced a cute trio of identical models to stand next to the cars looking pretty. These are the blond, 25-year-old Barbadero sisters, Cynthia, Carolyn, and Christine, model/singer/actresses from Cinnaminson, New Jersey. Appropriately enough, these triplets, like the cars, are very small when you get up close: five-foot-nothing in the case of the girls, Aveo-size in the case of the cars.

Before we met the triplets, meaning the Barbaderos, we witnessed a kind of fakey young and raw New York street posse who did a well-choreographed and slightly raunchy dance around the cars accompanied by unconscionably loud dance-club music. I don't know what makes automakers think that a footsore crowd of working journalists wants to hear this stuff at ten in the morning. Or ever. We only really want hard information, prices, and schedules, and after that we want to yak with each other, compare notes, and talk shop. Commercial interruptions aren't high on the list of welcome guests.

Bob Lutz, GM Vice Chairman, gave the pre-intro intro, and one of his points was that "great cars make great brands; it's not the other way around." Well, I can't argue with that. It's essentially what we've said all along, except that to us brands and brand loyalty are only as good as, "What have you done for me lately?" We'd probably say, "Forget the brand, it's all about the product."  Bob Lutz owns his own MiG. No one would call that a great brand in the world of fighter aircraft. Must be a gas (OK, a lot of gas) to fly, though.

As for the three-pint-sized cars, my ears are still ringing and my notebook is thin of hard facts on what may be a more important unveiling for shareholders than consumers.

-- Gordon Hard