New U.S.-built GM small car could be Aveo replacement called Viva
by Sam Abuelsamid on Jun 1st 2009 at 1:32PM 
During Bob Lutz's speech to the Automotive Press Association in Detroit last week, one of his slides included some current and future product plans. Most of what was on the chart was already well known including cars like the Orlando, Cruze and Spark. Motor Trend's Todd Lassa noticed a new addition to the list which may well fit in with last week's announcement that GM will build a new small car in the U.S. The Chevrolet Viva has not been previously mentioned publicly by GM but is believed to be a B-segment car to replace the much-loved (not!) Aveo. The Viva is expected in 2011 to challenge the Ford Fiesta and Honda Fit. GM's announcement indicated that the factory would be tooled up for volumes of 160,000 units a year. It seems unlikely that the little Chevy Spark will be able to hit those kinds of numbers in the mid-term, but a slightly larger car s much more probable.
[Source: Motor Trend]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Harold Hickory 4:24PM (6/01/2009)
You must be kidding. Chevy Viva? "CHEV-VEE-VEE-VA?"
(This post brought to you by the letter 'V.')
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wave54 4:58PM (6/01/2009)
Well, at least GM can team up with Pfizer and share the costs on those "Viva Viagra" TV commercials. Maybe it has a "pop-up" touch screen LCD in the dashboard.
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win39 7:19PM (6/01/2009)
I think Viva here is used as in the Spanish version of long live the king, essentially a prayer that corporation survives. Actually I think it would be cool if they just adopted numbers like some of the Europeans. The advantage would be a complete break from the dorky names of the past.
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KM 7:27PM (6/01/2009)
Hopefully GM has learned that "small" and "cheap" doesn't mean "ugly" and "failure-prone."
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