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MEXICO CITY - Rodrigo Mendez's car is a flying purple nightmare, a bulked-up beast with a toothy grill and bellowing exhausts and a row of spoilers like a dragon's back.
Ten years ago, a Mexican hot rod like his would have been built around the ubiquitous Volkswagen Beetle, millions of which still rattle around Mexico. But these days, the Beetle has been blown off the coolness scale by a simple car with a redundant name - the Chevrolet Chevy.
The Chevy hatchback is the direct descendant of the extinct Geo Metro, and it is becoming something of a phenomenon in Mexico.
"It's a great car to fix up," Mendez said as admirers gawked at his car at a Chevy show in Texcoco, outside Mexico City. "It's cheap, it doesn't use much gas, and it's easy to take apart and put together."
Around him, about 60 Chevys gleamed in the sunlight, their small engines dripping with new chrome parts. Tanks of nitrous oxide, used to give engines a boost of energy, were wedged into the cars' tiny back seats along with speakers the size of bongo drums. Owners debated the merits of European vs. American styling, as if their diminutive hatchbacks were Porsches or Corvettes.
More than 48,000 Chevys have been sold this year in Mexico, more than any other car, according to the Mexican Automotive Industry Association. Since January 1994, Mexicans have bought more than 477,000 of them, leaving the emblematic Beetle in the dust. With a list price starting at $7,200, it's one of the cheapest cars in Mexico.
Hot-rodders called "tuners" have embraced the car, and there are about 20 fan clubs around the country. There is a monthly magazine, Chevymania, with a circulation of 70,000, regional Chevy car shows and a booming aftermarket of custom parts.
The Chevy's main competition in Mexico is the Nissan Tsuru sedan, which is popular with taxi drivers. But the Tsuru hasn't enchanted gearheads like the Chevy.
The basic four-cylinder design is so simple and successful that General Motors has reproduced it worldwide, with minor variations.
In Brazil, it is built and sold as the Chevrolet Celta. In Australia, it's the Holden Barina. In Japan, it's the Vita. In Europe, South Africa and India, GM produces a close relative, the Corsa, under the Vauxhall and Opel brands. Variants are sold in 80 countries, GM says.
There was also a North American cousin, the Geo Metro, which was a clone of the Suzuki Swift and was built at a joint plant in Canada. It became the Chevrolet Metro in 1998 and disappeared in 2001 as American buyers moved toward sport utility vehicles.
Mexico's Chevys come from a factory near the northeastern city of Saltillo.
Because the car first arrived in Mexico under the Opel Corsa name, most of the fan clubs call themselves Corsa clubs, and many owners have swapped their Chevrolet hood ornaments for the zigzag Opel symbol.
Competition from small cars like the Chevy, the Tsuru and the gumdrop-shaped Ford Ka are partly why Volkswagen de M�xico stopped making the Beetle in 2003. That year, Mexicans bought 10,485 Beetles and 49,532 Chevys.
The circulation of Chevymania magazine is closing in on Vochomania, its sister publication for Volkswagen fans, said Israel Fuentes D�vila, a reporter for both magazines.
"This is the new cheap, fun car for Mexico," Jaime S�nchez Ochoa, a member of the Corsa Club Izcalli, said as he ran a cloth over his cherry-red 2001 model.
"This car killed the Beetle."
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2004-10-25, 09:44 PM
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