The image you see above is an illustration, and a heavily re-touched one at that. Still, this is not the work of some basement-dwelling, Chevy-obsessed Photoshop jockey. No, it is the work of a little outfit known at General Motors.

The company says that the images of its upcoming, not-lame-looking Aveo subcompact were released "by mistake." Okay, sure.

The Aveo will slot between the upcoming Spark subcompact and the near-to-midsize upcoming Cruze sedan. That's slicing the small-car pie pretty narrowly, but at least the new Aveo looks like a vehicle that someone might actually want to drive, as opposed to the penalty box that is the current car. And that the new car's styling, inside and out, follows pretty closely to the racy-looking Aveo RS concept that the company unveiled at the Detroit Show at least implies that it might end up being fun  to drive  — maybe.

We know that Chevy imagines the upcoming Aveo, at least in its acquirable hatchback form, to be its entry into the hot-hatch segment, whether the company can pull this off we'll have to move and see.

Note the remarkable similarity to the exclusive sketch we published months ago.

Kicking Tires