Beat that!
Introduction
The Chevrolet Beat is often ignored by people who are looking to buy a modern, compact hatchback. I am ashamed to admit that even I used to belong to the group, before I reviewed the car exhaustively. A week with the car introduced me to some of its great virtues, which combined with its terrific pricing elevated its perception in my mind as one of the top-dogs in the new-age compact hatch segment. If you have been looking at buying a petrol hatchback, you need to take the Beat much more seriously than what you thought. Striken off the probables list by many only for being a Chevy, the Beat is actually a lot of car for its price. Let’s delve a bit deeper into the topic.
The Beat is the fruition of GM’s endeavour to stay relevant in the modern world where even the Americans have finally realized that gasoline isn’t just processed sea water. After the recent recession, the American drivers have somehow taken the pains to do some research and have come to understand that the fuel they had been burning with utter disdain for almost a century now, is extracted from beneath the earth, costs a lot of money, and will soon get exhausted. So while the people in GM’s motherland have sacrificed their 7-litre V10s for more obliging 4-litre V8s the rest of the world seems to have shifted to cars powered by miniscule engines covering 1.0-litre of space or thereabouts. And since it’s imperative to cater to the whole world to still be able to be termed a global carmaker, GM has come out with cars like the Beat to take the fight to the masters of Frugality – the Japanse, which are joined these days by the Koreans.
The Beat has been designed and developed by GM Daewoo based in South Korea, and is a ground up platform codenamed M300. The styling of the Beat was chosen by the popular poll which gave the voters a choice of three designs to pick their favourite from. And boy, what a design it is! Flip over for our comments on the Beat’s aesthetics
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Chevrolet Beat Introduction
Chevrolet Beat Design and Styling
Chevy Beat engine, transmission and performance
Chevy Beat interiors and features
Chevy Beat Ride quality, NVH and Handling
Chevy Beat – Summing it Up
Chevy Beat Specifications