ChevroletBeat

AB reader Kyle Swift just sent us a few cellphone pics he took of a Chevrolet Beat prototype lounging around at New York's Rochester Institute of Technology. The camouflaged runabout was spotted in a parking lot on the university's grounds, possibly visiting from nearby Delphi.

As you may recall, the Chevy Beat was the most popular of a trio of concepts Chevy showed to the world at the 2007 New York Auto Show. Based on General Motors' new global mini-car platform, the Beat was designed as the sportiest of the triplets with a 1.2L turbocharged gas engine mated to an automatic transmission.

Testing of the Chevy Beat is officially underway, and our friends at NextAutos have procured the first set of spy shots. The camo'd mule is still sporting the short overhangs and upright silhouette of the concept, but GM decided to equip the squat city car with another set of doors to make ingress and egress easier for rear-seat passengers.

We saw the Chevy Beat concept unveiled a year ago, and now a camouflaged mule has been caught testing in China, fueling speculation that the Beat will succeed the Spark in that market. The Beat is certainly far less dowdy than the Spark, which is also sold, sometimes gratuitously, as the Matiz in other markets.