Stylish with an aggressive stance, the 2009 Pontiac Solstice Coupe GXP gets it right in the exterior design category.
Making a basic sports car seems like it should be easy. Start with a two-passenger car then add a manual transmission that takes power from an engine with some pep and feeds it to the rear wheels. This is sports car 101. Sure you can expand on this idea and start playing with AWD or semi-automatic paddle-shifted transmissions, but that causes costs to rise and begins to take the driver further away from total control of the sports car. The
2009 Pontiac Solstice Coupe GXP gets a lot of this recipe correct on paper, in reality however it is a different story.
First impressions of a car are typically of a visual nature. This was true with my first impression of the Solstice Coupe and it is a great place to start. The coupe body style works great with the Solstice (it was previously only available as a convertible). When I viewed the Solstice Coupe in photos I thought the fenders might come off as too round, but in person they look great and actually play off nicely with the aggressive roofline and eager stance. The car looks like a real sports car especially when wearing this Wicked Ruby Red Metallic paint.
Moving inside is where things first start to take a downturn. I was almost always comfortable in the very nicely cushioned driver’s seat, but at times I had to crane my neck to see out the small side windows and small windshield. The radio was a very basic GM unit which is fine in a sports car, but this car was equipped with the optional 7-speaker Monsoon system which rattled a little on the low end. There is one cup holder hidden away on the passenger side of the transmission tunnel which I couldn’t really see from the driver’s side and there are two more cup holders… behind the driver and passenger headrests. I don’t know if that is for Feng Shui purposes but I did not see the point in placing these here. The overall effect of the interior felt a little cheap for a car in this price range, even if it is supposed to be a true sports car.
Now, I can live with interior quibbles and a sub-par sound system if the driving experience is top notch. The driving experience… is not top notch. The car is fun, it handles ok, but it is just too heavy. The engine produces 260 hp from its 2.0L turbocharged four-cylinder engine but the Solstice Coupe weighs over 3,000 lbs. It is pretty quick in a straight line and can be fun in easy corners but anything more and the weight starts to play a noticeable negative factor. The transmission works fine for this motor but the shift knob feels bulky in my hand and shift throws are longer than you would expect. They are not super long, just longer than I thought they would be.
The 2009 Pontiac Solstice Coupe GXP has a few high points; it has a great style and an engine that makes good power for a compact sports car. However it has its clear negatives as well. The interior is not very good and the weight takes its toll on the handling in harder corners. The real issue arises when you compare this car to a close rival, the
2009 Mazda MX-5 Miata. The Miata may have almost 100 hp less but it also weighs almost 500 lbs less as well. It handles like a full-size go-kart and it also has a great interior. On top of all that, the Miata is a few thousand less. The base price of the Solstice Coupe GXP is $30,375.00 and the one tested here is $33,140.00. The base price of a
2009 Mazda MX-5 Miata with a power retractable hardtop is $25,390.00 and the price of the one I had a chance to review was fully-loaded at $31,010.00. The Solstice Coupe GXP has more style than the Miata and a lot more power, but the Miata is the better overall sports car and gets that recipe just right.