Gadgetory

it's the smallest Chevy they make these days they say it's their first true mini car no Camaro DNA here no CD player either let's drive the 2013 Chevy spark and check the tech so what is a spark it is the new small car bottom of their line very small but still four or five inches longer than a Fiat 500 you to some idea it's a 5-door as you can see a fairly roomy front row a back row that is too seating what a middle finger up raised is today talked in the back you lift the hatch this is the only way the car is available by the way and you've got a very shallow rather tall cargo bay all right now I'm not being unnecessarily dickish when I tell you that I feel like I'm on a riding mower in this thing it's actually pretty roomy for the footprint of the car but there's something sort of upright about it and this whole wheel and pod have a very forward presentation that makes it feel like it's right in your face so that makes it feel a little bit odd in here but let's talk about this pod you've got a mechanical speedometer and over here you've got a digital LCD screen for other ancillary things right you see attack and odometer and your fuel level things like that in the 1 LT and 2 LT trim levels those are the number 2 and 3 trims from the base you get this head unit Chevy MyLink a new interface we've never seen before good-looking thing isn't it Audio of course takes you to your audio sources which you're going to be surprised by look at my list what's missing no CD not standard not optional not possible am/fm no HD radio satellite radio I believe you get three months complimentary maybe it's a month but there's a little taste there iPod hooked up through USB you have a standard analog aux bluetooth streaming nice meta tags as well and they come very quickly now here's a really cool part about this system with our attached smartphone we go to smartphone link three apps were supported right now Pandora of course we'll get you your streaming radio that you know well thumbs-up thumbs-down a customized Pandora interface nice album art there as well if we back it up you find stitcher the podcast application and again very common interface when we were on Pandora you have to have those apps installed on your phone by the way they're not part of the head unit the way Toyota does it in end to the last one here is bring go as of our shoot today this is still TBD but it'll be coming to the cars as an optional add-on for 50 bucks you get this support built-in and that becomes your nav there is no native nav built into this head unit it's got to be through your smart phone so the power and the guts and the connectivity is here and of course bring goes a connected navigation solution you've got some Google search for places you've got live traffic it's a nice advanced system but again you've got to bring the horsepower and pay 50 bucks for the app integration up here in early 2013 the spark will also add support for Siri through an iPhone 4s or five including an eyes free mode that keeps the iPhone screen dark during Siri sessions giving you no reason to take your eyes off the road and look at the phone now the engine on the spark was here a minute ago ah there it is 1.25 litre inline-four tiny without put numbers we haven't seen in this country since the 80s 84 horsepower 83 foot-pounds of torque nothing in the triple digits zero to 60 almost certainly the car weighs about 2,300 pounds and you're going to get 30 to 38 mpg with the manual because it's a five-speed fairly modern get the four-speed automatic which they must source from John Deere and your mpg drops a lot down to 28 37 okay when you set off in the spark you obviously don't expect much from a car with single-digit power and a pretty cheap price but I'll tell you what this is far from the worst ride quality I've experienced this year in fact I can think of a couple cars that cost more than twice this much that were much harsher to ride in which brings us to the power a short subject there's not much there as you can tell from the numbers and you always feel like you're about 20 percent shy of the power you really need especially when you're trying to accelerate onto a freeway or make some kind of a maneuver at full throttle and you do get to full throttle a lot in this car it's never risky because alright much going on there good visibility in this guy because you've got those nice deep windows back there they don't have any tinting on them that's a big old backlight on that hatch as well and these little quarter peekaboo windows here just give you a nice big greenhouse it's one of the things that little cars can do to do themselves a favor as far as shifting the clutch and gearbox are actually just fine they're not bad at all shifter is a little long I'm not sure if I'm moving gears or churning butter but it works ok this price our Sparky little friend 13 eight base that includes destination then you've got the 1lt and the 2lt trim levels 1lt is a given 1,600 bucks for the MyLink head unit remote control locks on the key fob yet that's optional and cruise control 2lt I can live without leather seats in these alloy wheels automatic transmission 9:25 you'll want to live without that it does nasty things to acceleration and mpg all in CNET style 15 4