If there’s anything about the 2006 Pontiac Solstice that requires immediate resolution by GM, it’s quality – and that includes the unrefined engine and clunky manual transmission. From materials to construction, the Solstice needs improvement in these areas to remain a desirable and viable product for years to come.

Inside, the materials look OK at a glance, but the hard plastic surfaces come straight out of the GM pickup truck school of interior design. Our Cool (silver) over Ebony test car’s black plastic interior panels were obviously cheap. The gray-stitched leather offset this a bit, as did the dark gray metallic dash insert with its rubbery surface feel. And the chrome accents throughout the cabin were nice, too, if you don’t mind that they twinkle in the sunlight. But we would like to see more extensive use of soft-touch, matte-finish materials and real aluminum trim inside this ride – even if the price tag needs to rise by a few hundred bucks.

And those materials need to be solidly affixed to their moorings. Our test Solstice featured a loose gauge binnacle and center console plastic that could be lifted up from the floor just like in an old Chevy Camaro. Every cupholder tray is flimsy, and the A-pillar trim is squeezable. True, most of the Solstice’s bits and pieces don’t wiggle around much and fit together pretty well, but we’d like it if they didn’t wiggle around at all.

Exterior build quality on our test car was not good. We found inconsistent fits for the fascias, the rubber trim on the passenger door, and both the headlights and taillights. The front left plastic wheel well liner sagged, and we spotted paint runs on the edges of the hood. To tackle its main competitor, the Mazda MX-5 Miata, a car lauded by “Consumer Reports” as one of the most reliable vehicles on the market, Pontiac will need to pay more attention to the details.