South American Chevy Cobalt Concept Has No Idea its Name Is Stained

Thank you for using rssforward.com! This service has been made possible by all our customers. In order to provide a sustainable, best of the breed RSS to Email experience, we've chosen to keep this as a paid subscription service. If you are satisfied with your free trial, please sign-up today. Subscriptions without a plan would soon be removed. Thank you!

Anyone who ever wondered why Chevrolet named its latest compact sedan Cruze instead of sticking with the previous Cobalt needed merely to gaze upon the first and only generation of the Chevy Cobalt. While it was far and away better than the Cavalier it replaced, it was a long ways from competitive. Chevrolet understood that using the name again would only have handicapped its most refined small car in decades. So color us confused when Chevrolet of South America announced that it will unveil a Cobalt concept at the 5^th International Motor Show in Buenos Aires this week.

The Cobalt concept is a small car, close in size to the upcoming Sonic sedan, but GM of South America is pushing the tiny sedan's big-car refinement and styling. We aren't sure we would use the word "refined" to describe the styling, which while not necessarily bad, seems from some angles an inelegant amalgam of several U.S.-market GM sedans. The Buick LaCrosse-like rear fender bump is oddly echoed over the front wheels, while the headlights look like the offspring of those on the Malibu and Equinox. There are classy LED running lights in the front fascia, but the taillights have oh-so-last-decade clear lenses over chrome-ringed elements. In the little sedan's favor, we will say that the word "Cobalt" wouldn't enter our brain space when gazing upon it, and the strange body sculpting does visually slim the tall bodysides while the front end screams micro Malibu.

Your author isn’t too up on his Spanish, but Chevy of South America's press release seems to indicate that this anti-Cobalt Cobalt is production-bound for South American consumption. It will be powered by a lineup of four-cylinder engines ranging from 1.3 to 1.8 liters, bolted to either a manual or automatic transmission. Hopefully, the Cobalt name will only be affixed to the concept; we have an idea for the production version: Malibu M, for "Malibu Mini."

Alexander Stoklosa 18 Jun, 2011

--
Source: http://blog.caranddriver.com/south-american-chevy-cobalt-concept-has-no-idea-its-name-is-stained/
~
Manage subscription | Powered by rssforward.com