Find the Volt. GM parked the Chevy "extended-range EV" show car in front of the Edmunds building and it was immediately engulfed by curious staff members.

A picture, the old saw goes, is worth a thousand words.

In the case of the Chevrolet Volt, the pictures that we've seen previously are worth a thousand words of apology.

GM dropped by Edmunds.com headquarters Monday to show the staff the Volt show car that will be on the stand at the Los Angeles Auto Show starting with a media preview Wednesday  and we were both impressed and abashed.

Impressed by how good looking the car (left) is in person, abashed at how we joined lots of others in bad-mouthing it when all we had to look at were pictures (below, bottom) that just didn't do it justice.

The production-version Volt still isn't the low-slung, knife-edged, machine the original concept car made it out to be. But that car, according to GM Vice Chairman and produce guru Bob Lutz, turned out to have the aerodynamics of a brick.

After massive surgery to make air flow over and around the car smoothly instead of slamming into it like a block wall and then setting up enough turbulence to rival a Mix-Master dialed up to "blend" (sorry, I was helping the wife bake last night), the result is one nice-looking, sporty compact.

Especially striking in the flesh and hard to show properly in a photo (click on photos for larger sizes) is the rear-end styling. It isn't as soft and squooshy as it appeared in those initial photos from GM, boasting instead a lot of the original concept's sharp creases and blunt musculature.

The roofline, which appeared a bit hump-backed over the rear of the cabin in the original GM photos, is smoother and lower on the show car we saw -a car that, Volt vehicle line director Tony Posawatz insists, looks just like the 2011 model year production car slated to hit Chevy dealers' showrooms near the end of 2010.

John O'Dell, Senior Editor

Studies in contrast: Volt line manager Tony Posawatz poses with production model mock-up in first official GM photo (left) and GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz poses with orignal Volt concept (right).
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Visit Edmunds Inside Line for more photos, details of Volt production model.

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Photos 1 and 3 by John O'Dell
Photo 2 by Jon Barrett, Edmunds.com
Photos 4 and 5 courtesy General Motors Corp.

Tags: lutz, gm, volt, chevrolet

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By - Hybrid Guy
Bio: My fascination for hybrid cars came about long ago. I've been living green before gas hit $1/gallon. It's really a way of life and I hope I can share with you all I know about Hybrid Cars.
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