Most materials are good quality, particularly the leather, soft plastic and trim plastic. However, the hard plastic on the doors and dash looks and feels too much like hard plastic.
The three-spoke steering wheel could be thicker, but the optional leather-wrapped rim feels great. Cruise-control and audio buttons are embedded in the spokes. The dash design is simple, handsome and effective. The panel sweeps up from the center console, over the gauges and into the door panels. The gauges sit at the bottom of deep tubes, and while they're nicely shielded from reflection, they could be better aimed toward the driver's sight line. Four circular vents move plenty of air.
The three climate control knobs are big and easy to find. The square stereo face plate stands out oddly from the flowing curves everywhere else in the car. The volume and tuning knobs are large and covered with the same soft, grippy material as those for the climate controls, making them easy to adjust when the car is in motion. A row of buttons sits to the right of these gauges for hazard lights, traction electronics, fog lamps and dash lights, right where fingers stretch from the right hand when properly wrapped around the steering wheel.
The window switches are awkward to reach. With forearm flat on the driver's door arm rest, and the left hand resting at the door pull, the window switches sit somewhere under the wrist. It's difficult to slide the arm back to reach them (or the mirror adjustor), because the elbow is blocked by the seatback bolster. The driver must contort his or her left arm to try to get fingers on the switches.
Although the coupe is better than the convertible in this respect, small object storage space is seriously lacking in this car, probably the biggest single strike against the Solstice as a daily driver or a long vacation drive. There's a decent-sized glovebox, and small a bin between the front seats on the rear bulkhead that will accommodate some CDs, but you can't get into it while driving and the plastic latch is easily broken. The coupe adds a pair of small covered bins behind the headrests.
The cupholders, which pull out from under the bin on the bulkhead, are as good as useless for the driver. Door pockets are conspicuous by their absence. And aside from the coupe's covered bins, there's no room directly behind the seats.
The roadster's trunk is tiny and the space is oddly shaped. Doubling as storage for the convertible top, it provides 5.4 cubic feet of space with the top up, and just 2.1 cubic feet of space with the top down. Those numbers don't truly tell the tale, however. The elephant in the trunk is the gas tank, a big box that leaves barely enough room around the edges for small, soft-sided, duffel-bag-type luggage. While storage space in other small roadsters may not look significantly greater by the numbers, the practical, usable space in most is significantly better.
There's no room for a spare tire. As with the MX-5, the Solstice comes with an emergency inflator strapped to the back wall of the trunk; in other words, air up that flat tire and continue. Or call a tow truck.
Stowage is better in the coupe. Because they didn't have to accommodate the large folding convertible top, the designers were able to move the fuel tank evaporative canister down several inches, creating a bigger storage well capable of holding at least a weekend's worth of clothing in duffels. However, this space diminishes substantially if the owner adds the convertible top option.
OnStar Turn-by-Turn Navigation is available on the Solstice. Turn-by-Turn allows subscribers to talk to a live advisor, who in turn sends complete step-by-step directions to the vehicle through the OnStar system. These audio directions automatically play through the vehicle's stereo as needed, triggered by OnStar's global positioning system capabilities and ultimately leading the Solstice to its destination. OnStar calculates the route and relays it to the car, rather than leaving the calculations to an onboard computer and displaying them as directions or a map. Next Page