GM explores sheet hydroforming

It is a slow way to make them, but for low-volume vehicles such as the Pontiac Solstice, GM believes it is effective for producing large, complex, and blemish-free body panels.

“Gotta-have” styling in competitively priced cars is the General Motors Corp. mantra since the arrival of Bob Lutz, Vice Chairman and renowned “car guy.” However, today's markets are so fragmented that the expressively styled car that really “grabs” buyers also limits its appeal to smaller numbers, which drives up unit costs.

GM did not want to abandon the huge market for under-$20,000 vehicles, even if it meant coming up with as many variants from a single platform as necessary to make the effort profitable. And so it developed a new small-car rear-drive platform/architecture-Kappa-and for openers has four possible vehicles for it. The first, a Pontiac convertible called the Solstice, has a planned sales volume of only 20,000 per year. It goes into production next year as an early 2006 model.