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Junkyard Gem: 2005 Chevrolet Aveo LS Sedan

The story of Daewoo in North America took some interesting plot turns over the decades. First we had the 1988-1993 Pontiac LeMans, a rebadged Daewoo LeMans. A bit later, Daewoo began selling cars under its own nameplate here, with the Lanos, Nubira, and Leganza available for the 1999-2002 model years. Then Daewoo fled the continent and left warranty service of those cars in the hands of Manny, Moe, and Jack. With GM taking over Daewoo Motors after Daewoo's bankruptcy, we got some Daewoos with Suzuki badges here— the Verona and the Reno— while Chevrolet began selling the South Korean-built Daewoo Kalos as the Aveo for the 2004 model year. This car may not be a gem in the sense that you would want to own one, but it's a gem of automotive history and thus deserves its place in this series (especially because it's one of the rare 5-speed cars sold here). Many (maybe even most) of these cars ended up in the hands of rental-car companies and other fleet users, but we can tell from the three-pedal setup that this car went to a non-fleet buyer. We've had a couple of these cars compete in the 24 Hours of Lemons, where I work as a dignified and respected race official, and they've been amazingly quick on a road course in the hands of good drivers. Power came from this 103-horsepower Opel-designed four displacing 1.6 liters. The Nubira and Lanos got versions of this engine on these shores, too. The LS was the top trim level for the Aveo in 2004, so this car got air conditioning and a halfway decent audio system (by 2004 standards). The seat fabric is industrial-grade stuff, which would have held up well under the steady drip and/or torrents of bodily fluids coating the interiors of rental cars. The 2004 Aveo LS started at $12,045, which comes to about $16,675 in 2020 dollars, so it was a lot of commuter-appliance for the price. The following generation of this car became the Chevrolet Sonic, beginning with the 2012 model year. You can still buy a new Sonic, and the inflation-adjusted price is nearly identical to that of the original AveoÂ… though you might want to move fast if you really want one, because Daewoo stopped selling the Kalos in South Korea not long ago. If you want the rarest member of the Aveo family available in North America, find yourself a hen's-teeth Pontiac G3, the short-lived Pontiac-badged version. Speaking of the G3, here's the way it broke the hearts of gas pumps around the world.

Autoblog Minute: Finalists announced for 2016 Tech of the Year award

Here are the finalists for Autoblog's 2016 Technology of the Year award. Autoblog's Chris McGraw reports on this edition of Autoblog Minute, with commentary from Autoblog executive producer Adam Morath, AutoblogGreen editor-in-chief Sebastian Blanco, and Autoblog senior editor Alex Kierstein. Show full video transcript text [00:00:00] It's Fall here in Detroit and for us that means it's time for football, autumn beers, and the fourth annual Autoblog Tech of the Year awards. I'm Chris McGraw and this is your Autoblog Minute. Tech of the Year is one of our favorite things here at Autoblog. It's a time when we get celebrate all the best tech from the industry we love most. [00:00:30] - [00:01:00] [Commentary form Adam Morath, Sebastian Blanco, Alex Kierstein] Past winners include, Tesla's Supercharger network, FCA's Uconnect system and the BMW i8. In 2016 we're doing something a little different for Tech of the Year. We've separated our award into two categories. One award for best tech car, and a second award for best technology of the year. The nominees for best car in 2016 are: [00:01:30] the Tesla Model S, the Chevrolet Volt, and the BMW 7 series. The nominees for best tech in 2016 are: Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, Volkswagen's MiB II with AppConnect, Ford Sync 3, Audi's Virtual Cockpit, the Smart Cross Connect App, and Volvo Sensus. [00:02:00] We're going to announce Autoblog's Tech of the Year winners in January at the 2016 North American International Auto Show, in Detroit. For Autoblog, I'm Chris McGraw. Autoblog Minute is a short-form video news series reporting on all things automotive. Each segment offers a quick and clear picture of what's happening in the automotive industry from the perspective of Autoblog's expert editorial staff, auto executives, and industry professionals. Green BMW Chevrolet Ford Hummer smart Tesla Volkswagen Volvo Technology Infotainment Autoblog Minute Videos Original Video

Here are a few of our automotive guilty pleasures

It goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway. The world is full of cars, and just about as many of them are bad as are good. It's pretty easy to pick which fall into each category after giving them a thorough walkaround and, more important, driving them. But every once in a while, an automobile straddles the line somehow between good and bad — it may be hideously overpriced and therefore a marketplace failure, it may be stupid quick in a straight line but handles like a drunken noodle, or it may have an interior that looks like it was made of a mess of injection-molded Legos. Heck, maybe all three. Yet there's something special about some bad cars that actually makes them likable. The idea for this list came to me while I was browsing classified ads for cars within a few hundred miles of my house. I ran across a few oddballs and shared them with the rest of the team in our online chat room. It turns out several of us have a few automotive guilty pleasures that we're willing to admit to. We'll call a few of 'em out here. Feel free to share some of your own in the comments below. Dodge Neon SRT4 and Caliber SRT4: The Neon was a passably good and plucky little city car when it debuted for the 1995 model year. The Caliber, which replaced the aging Neon and sought to replace its friendly marketing campaign with something more sinister, was panned from the very outset for its cheap interior furnishings, but at least offered some decent utility with its hatchback shape. What the two little front-wheel-drive Dodge models have in common are their rip-roarin' SRT variants, each powered by turbocharged 2.4-liter four-cylinder engines. Known for their propensity to light up their front tires under hard acceleration, the duo were legitimately quick and fun to drive with a fantastic turbo whoosh that called to mind the early days of turbo technology. — Consumer Editor Jeremy Korzeniewski  Chevrolet HHR SS: Chevy's HHR SS came out early in my automotive journalism career, and I have fond memories of the press launch (and having dinner with Bob Lutz) that included plenty of tire-smoking hard launches and demonstrations of the manual transmission's no-lift shift feature. The 260-horsepower turbocharged four-cylinder was and still is a spunky little engine that makes the retro-inspired HHR a fun little hot rod that works quite well as a fun little daily driver.