Chevy makes a Super Spark we'll never see Posted 2010/06/09 @ 09:00 AM By Myles Kornblatt
The Chevrolet Spark had a small problem. It was chosen to be one of the leading cars for the World Touring Car Championship throughout Europe, but its 1.2-liter 80 hp engine has no business setting the pace for the 2.0-liter 170+ hp WTCC racecars. So General Motors reached back to its GTO days for a simple solution: grab an engine from a larger car.
This Chevy Spark Leading Car is powered by a 1.4-liter turbocharged 140 hp four-cylinder engine. The special edition we’ve named “Super Spark” (or possibly “Shocker”, but we already explored that implication) borrows the mid-level unit from the compact Cruze. The reason why we are so excited is this engine seemed like a good idea to provide brisk performance when GM featured it as the powerplant for the Aveo RS concept car. So, now in the even smaller and lighter Spark it opens the door to some interesting possibilities. This Super Spark is a little smaller than a Mini, and the power slots between the Cooper and the Cooper S.
There are of course still plenty of obstacles in the way. For starters adding 75% more horsepower and about 90% more lb-ft of torque to the Spark will give this car a wicked case of torque steer. Also, the 1.4-liter engine currently gets about 35 mpg in the European Cruze, which is respectable, but will seriously hinder the city car status of Spark’s current 46 mpg. Plus, this is just a one-off car that GM is using to promote its products during the European race series.
Despite all the reasons why the Super Spark will likely never see a showroom (the Spark should be in the U.S. by 2011), we’re still excited to see this one. It may not be practical, but it shows the people over at GM still know how to build a hot rod out of an economy car.
