Chevy Cruze SS, Anyone?

GM also Considering “Four-Door Coupe” Model in Effort to “Sport Up” Compact Lineup

February, 2010

Chevrolet is looking at two ways to “sport up” General Motors’ Delta compact platform. The more radical idea involves all new, “four-door coupe”-style sheetmetal on the same platform as the 2011 Chevy Cruze compact. The car would retain the Cruze’s wheelbase, but with a more rakish roofline that would sacrifice some back seat space for a more expressive design.

The idea would be to get a higher profit-margin car out of a relatively humble platform. It’s comparable to what Mercedes-Benz did with its CLS four-door coupe — a car that essentially raised the retail price of an E-Class-based car to near S-Class levels. A Cruze-based four-door coupe would theoretically serve as a step up toward the Camaro.

The more practical solution would be a Super Sport version of the Cruze. That entails suspension mods, of course, plus requisite trim upgrades and a high-pressure version of the 2.0-liter turbo along the lines of the 260-horsepower unit that powered the Pontiac Solstice GXP/Saturn Sky Redline and the coming 255-horsepower Buick Regal GS.

Both the four-door coupe and the Cruze SS could take the larger Epsilon platform’s all-wheel-drive system to mitigate torque steer. We’re not likely to see the SS earlier than the ‘13 model year; the four-door coupe would take even longer. But of course, before either of them hits Chevy dealers, the priority is to do a high fuel-mileage Cruze XFE.

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Tags: Chevy Cruze SS, Cruze, ss
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People buy cars they don’t need with money they don’t have to impress people they don’t like. That’s why hardly anybody in Europe is buying the Chevrolet Cruze, which has been on sale over here since last summer. It’s an affordable car that you might need but you won’t want, and which won’t impress anybody at all, because it’s just not that desirable. Allow me to explain…

The Cruze uses GM’s global Delta II platform, which is also the underpinning of the new Opel Astra as well as (in basic structure) the Chevy Volt. We Euros get Cruzes built in Korea but you in North America will have yours made in Michigan. It’s a conventional sedan, though in Europe at least, a hatchback and station wagon will follow.

The Cruze is Jetta-sized, but I’d say it looks better: less bloat, lower beltline, crisper shapes, good proportions. It manages to be both distinct and clean, with the major exception being the odd “headband” across the grille that encloses the recklessly large Chevy bow tie. If that is supposed to look sporty in a Jane Fonda, 1980’s aerobics way, it serves its purpose.

The interior is good, within the cut price idiom. For a Daewoo, the Cruze is short on depressing Korean genericness and long on generic-but-OK GM stuff, such as the standard cow’s tongue steering wheel and annoyingly deep-set instrument pods. It’s a bit fussy but not in a particularly creepy way, and I actually liked the cloth-befitted dashboard – fabric being generally preferable to dead cow. Finish and the selected plastics are quite OK.

What is really good is available space: the Cruze has plenty for four. This is more than a commuter car: I could deal with sitting in the back for hours on end and the trunk could handle all my trip luggage too (as it has a capacity of 16 cubic feet). Oddly, GM likes to stress that the trunk has indentations enabling space for two golf bags – I didn’t know that golfers were a cheap-car-buying demographic yet.

Not to forget, the Cruze has fared very well on the newest Euro-NCAP crash tests.

This is a really cheap car, so I’d gladly accept an interior that isn’t quite VW-standard if it saved me thousands. (You can get one like my tester for €15k, which is around 30% less than a comparable Jetta in Germany. And entry-level Cruzes start at €12k, which is the average price of cars that are two sizes smaller).

But some things just aren’t worth a low price. Case in point: the Cruze’s engine. The 1.8L machine produces 140HP of which I could only feel around 105 actually doing any work. And what little output it could muster produced more than its share of an unlovely noise. It’s an old-school engine that has somehow found its way into a new car, and it ruins the experience. Picture a car that feels well-made but which at highway speeds has a gruff, obtrusive, strained sound coming from its engine department: that’s what the Cruze I drove was like. (I also spent an hour in a Cruze equipped with the 110HP 1.6L engine. It’s slightly sweeter, but the sound is still gruff, and it’s so weak you have to thrash it all the time, so it’s not an alternative). Apparently the Diesels are the pick of the bunch, but they come at a steep, three-grand price premium. At a reported 25MPG, the tested 1.8L is not exactly economical either.

I didn’t like the overly snatchy brakes or the late-action clutch, either. And speaking of snatchiness, the ignition lock is snaggly.

In contrast to the engine, the Cruze’s ride and handling are perfectly acceptable in the grand scheme of things. The Chevwoo doesn’t communicate like an Euro-market Focus or cosset like a Renault Megane but it felt capable at a wide range of jobs – city, highway, high-speed (110 MPH) autobahn. The bias is definitely on comfort, but the ride-handling compromise is quite good. And wind and ride noises are pleasantly low.

But back to the engine problem: how can it be that a major car company introduces a new global model with a dud motor? Well, I’m going to speculate that this is the product of a major planning malfunction; it’s the only explanation I can think of. Somewhere along the line, somebody upstairs at GM may have realized that the Cruze had as much interior space as the poorly-packaged, larger yet cramped Opel Insignia / Buick Regal. And that it beats the similar Opel Astra on several counts – but all at a seriously lower price. How to protect the Opels from the Chevys? How to keep the Daewoo off Buick’s neck?

Instead of letting the brands fight it to the finish in the way (for instance) that VW does with Skoda, GM seems to have cheapened the Cruze by installing an obsolete engine. (Obviously, GM has some good small engines on tap; why else wouldn’t they use one? Cost can’t be that much of a factor.)

I have to tell you that it’s a personal thing for me: just as I don’t trust a man who dyes his hair, or I don’t trust a banker, or a teetotaler, I don’t trust a car maker that willingly adulterates one car in order to protect another.

Porsche did it with the 914 and with the Boxster in order to protect the 911, and thereby earned the distrust of first Setright and then Clarkson. (And just look what has happened to Porsche in the mean time). GM does it with the Cruze, so why would I buy one, or recommend it to anybody I know?

I mean, everybody makes mistakes, but to install a crummy engine in a new global car on purpose sounds like what a company would do that is trying to pull one over you. Just think of what kind of unseen short cuts they might be taking, quality-wise.

If you wanted to be generous, you could forget this possibly petty matter of trust. Instead, you could say that this is a pretty decent, useful small car that will hopefully be equipped with a much better engine when it leaves North American factories next year. But as it is right now, there are around a dozen better cars on the market, most made by trustworthier companies.

[Editor's Note: The US-spec 2011 Cruze will offer an available 1.4 liter turbocharged engine in addition to the 1.8 liter base engine tested here]

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Tags: Cruze, delta II, europe, german spec, GM
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Be still your beating heart, dear reader. In recent weeks these pages have fed you repeatedly at the top table of the motoring dining room, allowing you to trough on the very finest dishes served up by both Lamborghini and Bugatti.

Today, though, we’ve found a very nice spot for you on the motoring equivalent of table 37, right next to the swing door that opens directly into the sweaty kitchens. Yep, welcome back to the real world; bet you missed us, didn’t you?

Truthfully, the all-new Chevrolet Cruze pictured here is the kind of affordable, practical car that a lot of us actually do drive in the real world. Supercars are fine if you’re hyper-wealthy, but the Cruze and its ilk are the real kings of our roads – built for and driven by the masses.

If the car looks more than a little familiar, that’s because the first-generation Cruze was formerly badged as a Lacetti and is the reasonably priced car that stars get to race around a track on Top Gear. And on that TV programme the Lacetti is the show’s stooge, the butt of a thousand jokes.

But things really don’t seem that bad at all on the second-generation model, now rebadged as a Cruze.

It is part of a vanguard of so-called “gas-friendly and gas-free” cars being rolled out by Chevrolet that also includes the eagerly anticipated Volt. As such, the Cruze is a hugely important launch for GM, pitching Chevrolet once more into a highly charged fist fight in a compact sector already crowded by the Honda Civics, Mazda3s and Toyota Corollas of this world.

With such strong competition, Chevrolet has put together a package that places the emphasis on quality, reliability and durability – all essential characteristics of a small family car designed to break the Japanese stranglehold.

Chevrolet is very excited about the way the Cruze is precisely built and it would be remiss of me not to tell you that its panel gaps are positively Germanic (and indeed Japanese) in their construction.

Styling-wise, the front grille benefits from that super-sized signature radiator that betrays its Chevrolet genes and funky wraparound headlights. An overhanging bonnet completes a well-worked nose. The car is prettiest in profile, its lines mimicking those of a coupe rather than a boxy compact. Altogether, it is a big improvement on the largely unloved Lacetti.

The standard-fit 1.8L four-cylinder powertrain is reliable and very economical too. Chevrolet claims fuel economy of 6.9L/100km, a figure that indicates American car makers are finally getting serious about mass-producing fuel-efficient cars.

This engine is mated to a six-speed and class-leading automatic transmission – the Japanese competition currently has to make do with five- and sometimes four-speed equivalents. But there’s little point in me boring you with too many performance numbers though, as the only real figure that matters in this cost-conscious sector is the price: Dh52,500 in base specification. Very competitive indeed.

And there’s more good news too. Inside you get a more spacious interior than the Civic or Corolla, and some simple, clever touches – like cup holders you can make bigger and smaller in the centre console.

Throw in a sprinkling of goodies such as a decent stereo system, power windows, cruise control, a very good air conditioning unit and a dash trimmed with faux metal inserts and the package appears to have been mixed together very nicely.

Predictably, this is all served up with the usual dollop of safety features – dual front airbags (side airbags are available as an extra cost option) and a reported five-star rating in the Euro NCAP crash safety tests.

So far so good then. The difficulties begin when the open road starts.

I’d hoped the Cruze would be honest, willing and able – the kind of everyday car Chevrolet needs to build to restore its dented reputation. Instead, the Cruze exhibited all the properties of a middle-aged middle manager: soft, a little flabby and very, very grey.

The problem is the Cruze feels like it has had the life sucked out of it by focus groups. Having been bashed by the critics for too long, Chevrolet has listened just a little bit too hard and created something far too clinical for its own good.

Where Chevrolet had led me to believe I would be stepping inside a car that would send my heart aflutter – “We believe in the human spirit. There’s nothing we can’t do. All of us. Each of us,” gushes the brochure babble – I found, instead, an utterly joyless car.

It may have perfect shut lines but the bean counters forgot to install a soul when they were doing all their complex calculations.

In fairness, it is smooth at speed and does handle reasonably well around town, while the gearbox is a little less jerky than equivalent models from other car makers, but somehow it just feel like exactly what it is: a flawed attempt to replicate the kind of car the competitors have been building for decades.

The only difference is, after years of practice, the Japanese manufacturers have worked out it’s alright to let the lunatics take over the asylum once in a while, to inject a bit of excitement back into proceedings. That’s why “zoom-zoom” is more than an empty marketing phrase on every Mazda in their range.

A precisely built car from Chevrolet? Sometimes, you should be careful what you wish for.

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Tags: 2010, Cruze, cruze forum, lt
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You’re driving along listening to your favorite radio station and a commercial playing contains a website address you want to check out. But you can’t – or shouldn’t – be writing while driving. Wouldn’t it be great to just hit a pause button on the radio?

Now you can.

Pause and play radio is a built-in feature of the High Navigation Radio in the Chevrolet Equinox, Buick LaCrosse, GMC Terrain and Cadillac SRX as well as the Cadillac CTS Jukebox and Navigation radio, on which it debuted in 2008. Pause and play is coming soon to the new Buick Regal and Chevrolet Cruze.

Just like digital video recording at home that lets you capture live broadcasts and take a break while watching, pause and play radio lets you stop a live broadcast, record up to 20 minutes, and play it back later. It’s as simple as pushing the radio reverse button.

But say you’re listening to a football game on XM Satellite Radio, and your gas gauge is running down with the game clock. Do you risk running out of fuel to catch the end of the game?

No worries.

Before shutting off the vehicle, the driver can press the radio pause button, shut off their vehicle, get out and fill up, get back in the vehicle and start it, push the radio play button and resume listening to the game it stopped.

The content is stored on an embedded hard drive within the radio. Listeners can fast-forward and reverse playback as desired.

Tags: Cruze, GM, pause and play
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