Chevrolet has finally unveiled the details of it’s Cruze world car in U.S. spec along with some crisp HD photos. Of course I haven’t driven the damn thing, but half the fun of talking about new cars is speculation. Will be better than the old dog Cobalt it replaces? What’s up with the smaller displacement engines? Will they be any good? Is this Cruze going to end up being another awful rental car? Well only time and some proper test driving will tell. But we’ve got specs and pics and i think that’s enough to have a nice conversation over, so let’s get to it!!
The Cruze is an all new car Chevy has come up with. From the outside, the Cruze looks like a proper step towards modern for Chevy’s compact sedan offering. The front looks like it means business. The headlights are sort of this angular Nike swish that come come away from the grill and shoot back into the bodywork. A subtle line streaks beneath the belt line for the length of the car in sort of a BMW 5 series kind ofway until you get to the taillights…which again remind me of a BMW 5 series. Really, it’s a compliment…I swear. The dimensions of the car are a bit bigger everywhere. It’s been lengthened to give more backseat leg room, widened for better handling and more shoulder room, and heightened for more headroom. All in all, this Cruze is quite handsome and loads more interesting to look at than that defunked Cobalt and should give you the feeling of being in a bigger car than you really are.
Chevy intend for this to be a world car, so I’m sure they’ve done their homework. At least I hope they have because they really can’t afford to be wasting anymore [of our] money. But let’s not forget that they have developed a habit of tuning their chassis’s on the Nurburgring in order to compete with European offerings, something Dodge/Chrysler still hasn’t caught onto *shakes head*. So it should handle crisply and that’s promising. I drove a Cobalt for a week and i couldn’t wait to get back in my 93 Honda Accord. Yeah, that’s right. A 93 Accord was a damn blessing.
In the power department, the Cruze will be offered up with two engine choices as well as two transmissions. We get a turbocharged 1.4 liter flat 4 cylinder engine making around 138hp and 148 ft-lbs of torque or you can level up and get the 1.8 with a bit more horsepower, but not as much torque. Personally, I’m not sure I like these. I’m not sure how much the car weights, but wouldn’t a 2.0 liter or 2.4 have been more appropriate? Oh well, this is all a game of fuel economy anyhow. the 1.4 turbo is supposed to get 40 miles to the gallon. Nice! Both of the tranmissions offered with these engines have 6 gears and will come in manual or automatic. If I do get the opportunity to review the car for you guys, I’ll get the auto box since that’s what most will likely buy.
The interior is a quantum leap ahead of the Cobalt. The Cruze just looks cool inside. It’s the best way I can describe it from the pictures. I’m not counting on all the materials to be of the highest quality, but it all does give the appearance at least of being more upscale than its predecessor. I would, however, count on more soft touch materials on the arm rest, doors, steering wheel and dashboard. The silver plastics against the glossy piano black plastics is a nice contrast. All of the controls look like they have been laid out in an ergonomic fashion against an interesting center stack and the LCD display screen doesn’t look like it’s based off of a something built during the 80’s
There’s still a lot that we don’t know about the Cruze. But, on paper, it looks like it should be an interesting and refreshing entry into it’s respective market. I imagine direction competition coming from Mazda3, Ford Focus, Kia Forte and Honda Civic(good Lord they need to come out with a new one of those!!!). The Cruze is slotted to hit showrooms in the third quarter of 2010. I’ve got my eye on you, Government Motors.
To see an annoying promotional video for the 2011 Chevy Cruze, check below!!
**note**: It’s better with the sound off
-TripleDeuce
No comments:
Post a Comment