2013 Chevrolet Spark | Review, Price, Specification

 You may call the 2013 Chevrolet Spark "unique" without upsetting defenders of the English language. "Unique" means "one of a kind," so "very unique" is poor wording, and describing an item as "unique" when there are other things like it is wrong.

 

The Spark is Chevy's new A-segment mini. Three other cars sold in the U.S. compete in this size category, and none is like this Bowtie A-car. It certainly has none of the cartoonish character of the Fiat 500, and it's more than $3000 cheaper than the op-art design, two-door hatchback Scion iQ, a car surprisingly substandard in its driving dynamics, especially for a Toyota product. The only competitor that comes close to the Spark's $12,995 price is the Smart Fortwo, a two-door two-seater that serves as a strong argument for the commuter biking movement.

The Chevy Spark, which goes on sale in August or September, is the only four-door hatchback in the A-segment with reasonably comfortable space for four adults. It is unique. A pure electric version is scheduled to hit the market next year.

 

The rear seat, with cupholders dividing left from right, has generous headroom and pretty good legroom, with a necessarily short seat cushion. The car is tall: one inch taller than the already upright Sonic B-car. With the Spark's rear seats up, there's not much more cargo space than in the Fortwo. But who combines grocery shopping with double dates? Flip and fold the rear seats and the Spark offers 31.2 cubic-feet of volume, Chevy says.

 That's why Chevy offers the Spark with a rather large 7-inch touchscreen MyLink radio bereft of a CD player. Like the MyLink units in other Chevrolet vehicles, it can run apps when paired with a smart phone. Pandora and Stitcher are available at launch and Chevy is promising a special navigation app later this year, called BringGo (not to be confused with Bringgo.com, which appears to be selling counterfeit products from China). We got to sample a preproduction version of the mapping software running on an iPhone during the 30 or so miles we drove, and it not only looked great but performed perfectly, including restarting its guidance after we turned the car off and temporarily undocked the phone. We are firm believers in using portable navigation technology and glad to see Chevy adopting this solution rather than spec-ing a dedicated nav unit.

Bonus then for the Spark: It's actually a real car. At 144.7 inches long, the Spark is within two inches of the Mini Cooper hardtop, and its 93.5-inch wheelbase is almost two inches longer than the Mazda MX-5 Miata roadster. But the Spark is over three inches narrower and almost half a foot taller than the Mini. (For those of you who might have dropped freshman Physics in favor of something less math-y, short and squat is as desirable for handling as it isn't for getting a date.) At 11 cubic feet, cargo capacity isn't huge, but it's better than the others in this class. On the plus side – pun intended – the Spark's EPA passenger volume of 86 cubic feet is fairly huge, topping the Ford Fiesta hatchback, which is ostensibly a class up in the B-segment.

 So Chevy is pitting a bigger car against littler ones. Indeed, the Spark is some two feet longer than the iQ and has five inches on the 500, yet its powertrain is remedial compared to its classmates. The Spark's 1.2-liter four-cylinder (actually 1249 cc, the extra 50 cc being a concession to U.S. market tuning) employs variable valve timing to make all of 84 horsepower and 83 lb-ft of torque, meaning that with a curb weight of 2,237 pounds, each of the Spark's horses has to move almost 27 pounds of weight. By comparison, the Fiesta's ratio is only 1:21. Both the iQ (94 hp, 89 lb-ft) and the 500 (101 hp, 98 lb-ft) offer more power and torque, and the accompanying better power-to-weight ratios, as well. source:motortrend.com,autoblog.com