The just-introduced - and just-canceled.- Pontiac Solstice coupe is already assured a place in automotive history, and not only because its fleeting production run lasted mere months.

This new targa-top Solstice is the last of the Pontiacs, the final breath of a brand that failed to adapt to a changing world. Once-proud Pontiac is being phased out by General Motors, its parent, and will be gone in 2010. The Solstice coupe, a fixed-roof variation of the 4-year-old roadster, is Pontiac's last new model.

It could become something of a collector's item.

"We expect that total production will be in the neighborhood of 1,100 units when we cease operations at the Wilmington plant by the end of July," Jim Hopson, a Pontiac spokesman, wrote in an e-mail message. All Solstice coupes will have sequential ID numbers, so owners will know exactly which car of the 1,100 they have.

The coupe I tested was the hot GXP version, which comes with a 260-horsepower 4-cylinder engine. Its window sticker of $31,045 created an expectation of polish and comfort that I felt, considering the price, it failed to deliver.

Here is a car that essentially matches my definition of a doomed romance. Its drop-dead gorgeous exterior made me yearn for a fling that would turn meaningful, but a week of companionship revealed a list of quirks that included nearly every imaginable character flaw. A love-hate relationship, I suppose, was inevitable.

The spartan cabin, finished in unrelenting black on my test car, was especially noteworthy: I believe it could be the first automotive interior styled entirely by an accounting department. The only minimum-security prison I have ever visited (honest, it was only to interview an inmate) had more luxurious appointments.

The seats are tolerable, but neither supportive nor particularly adjustable - there is no place else for them to go in the cramped cockpit. Plus-size drivers should shop elsewhere.

There is virtually no convenient storage - no handy place for a cell phone, no bin to hold coins, no storage in the enormous console, no cubbies or map pockets in the doors. But there is a slit along the door sill, long enough and wide enough for a package of Slim Jim jerky.

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