Chevrolet Straightline Archives

We already saw a near-production version of the next-generation Chevrolet Aveo at the 2010 Detroit Auto Show. Now our spies have managed to catch a nearly undisguised prototype during testing in Detroit.

As you can see, the production Aveo looks as though it will carryover almost unchanged. And that my friends is probably a good thing as this Aveo looks like a pretty sharp little hatchback. You can argue about the nose all you want, but the rest of the car has nice short overhangs, a decent-sized greenhouse and nice proportions. Could be a decent alternative to the Honda Fit if the suspension is well sorted.

2010 Detroit Auto Show: Chevrolet Aveo RS Concept
 

Categories: Chevrolet,Detroit Auto Show,Hatchbacks,Spy Photos

Quite an interesting January as the domestics gained while there were mixed results for imports. You might have heard about that Toyota recall thing? Yeah, that news dinged Toyota's sales a good 16%, could be even worse in February if the situation doesn't improve.

On the flip side, both Ford and GM improved their year-over-year sales in January. Credit some of those gains to incentives designed to get the attention of wary Toyota consumers. Nissan and Hyundai also picked up some nice gains in January. For a full run down on all the stats, check out the full report on AutoObserver.

AutoObserver: January Whacks Toyota, But Sales Firm for Other Makers

Categories: Auto Industry,Chevrolet,Ford,General Motors,Honda,Toyota,Toyota Recalls

Yeah, no big surprise here. The 2012 Chevrolet Camaro has already been confirmed for production early next year, but it's nice to see that it's still on track.

The original supplier contracted to build the Camaro's convertible top went into bankruptcy, so Magna has stepped up to fill the order. A report in Automotive News suggests that Chevrolet is planning to produce roughly 20,000 Camaro convertibles in the first year.

Categories: Chevrolet,Convertibles,Future Vehicles,Spy Photos

A NHTSA investigation is never a good thing for an automaker, but this one could be good or bad for Chevrolet.

It's bad for obvious reasons. In this case, the Chevrolet Cobalt is being investigated for problems related to failure of its electric power steering system. According an article in the Detroit News, the problem has caused 11 accidents and generated 1,132 complaints. Although the cars in question range from 2005 to 2009, the majority of the reports have been filed in the last six months.

And the good part? The timing of course. If General Motors can take care of the issue quickly it will likely blow over while the Toyota fiasco dominates the headlines. Should be interesting to see how the two problems are handled.

Detroit News
 

Categories: Auto Industry,Chevrolet,General Motors

Stallone's taste in scripts? Not good. His taste in cars? Well, that looks like it shows some promise. I mean, the guy could buy anything he wants and he goes for a supercharged Hendrick 25th Anniversary Camaro? Nice. 

Not only that, he drives it to big celebrity dinners and shows it off. Fellow famous car guy, Jason Statham, seems to like Stallone's choice although we don't see Statham going the Chevy route anytime soon.

Camaro5

Categories: Celebrities,Chevrolet,Coupes,Sports Cars,Tuners and Modifications

GM is doing its own special kind of earthquake relief by donating this Corvette to the Barrett-Jackson auction. All proceeds from the auction of the Corvette will go directly to the Red Cross relief fund which has already received a $100,000 donation from the General Motors Foundation.

If you're curious, this is a limited-edition 2008 Z06 Corvette that features an exclusive Crystal Red exterior color, chrome exterior accents, a stinger hood stripe and Crystral Red center trim plate. The car will cross the block this Saturday night as lot# 1318.

Barrett-Jackson

Categories: Car Auctions,Chevrolet,Coupes,Sports Cars

It appears as though GM's new plan to drum up interest in its products revolves around challenging its competitors to contests that are either heavily weighted in its favor or utterly pointless to begin with.

First we had the CTS-V challenge, a seemingly straightforward "my car is faster than yours" event that quickly became mired in rules clearly meant to stack the deck in Cadillac's favor.

Now the shameless boasting has moved into the truck world as GM's product chief, Tom Stephens, has challenged Ford to a good ol' fashioned truck pull. You know the drill, chain a couple pick ups together and see which one wins/blows up first.

It's a classic "hold my beer and watch this" charade that has absolutely nothing to do with the respective capabilities of the trucks involved. The fact that anybody at GM, not to mention its product chief, thinks there's any validity to this PR stunt is disappointing. And slightly embarrassing -- for them.

Pickuptrucks.com 

Categories: Chevrolet,Ford,Trucks

The exterior design of the 2012 Chevrolet Aveo is no big secret. It won't be as aggressive as the Aveo RS concept shown in Detroit last week, but it'll be close. The real question was whether or not GM could figure out a way to make the production interior look as good as the concept.

Our spy photographers recently caught up with this test mule in the Arctic Circle and managed to snag a shot of the uncovered interior. There are a few wires in the way, but most of the cabin is relatively clean.

Looks like Chevrolet will keep the odd looking instrument panel, but will replace the concept center stack with a corporate GM head unit. No big surprise there. The seats in this test car appear to be cloth and we can't see enough of the seat to know if it will have any kind of reasonable support. Oh well, that steering wheel looks pretty good.

Categories: Chevrolet,Detroit Auto Show,Future Vehicles,Hatchbacks,Spy Photos

One of the writers at Jalopnik had an interesting conversation with a couple of GM officials this week: The possibility of allowing Corvette ZR1 owners to assemble the very LS9 V8 that will go into their cars is currently under consideration.

Jalopnik via CorvetteBlogger

Categories: Chevrolet,Sports Cars,Trends

We've got to give General Motors some credit here: The company cancelled the Pontiac G8 program, yet we cannot shut up about it. First, there was all the talk of the G8 being resurrected as a Caprice. Now, Mark Reuss, president of GM North America, is offering hope that the Ute open-bed verision of this rear-drive Holden might come to the U.S. as an El Camino.

"I think another brand with the Ute would be pretty attractive," Reuss told PickupTrucks.com in an interview. He then suggested that brand might be Chevrolet.

The prospect of using more fuel-efficient direct-injected V6 and V8 engines this time around might make the proposition more feasible, he added.

We of course saw the Holden Ute when it was dressed up as the Pontiac G8 Sport Truck at the 2008 New York Auto Show. It had the go-ahead for production, but then, well, you know what happened. Thanks go to Bob Holland for the tip.

PickupTrucks.com

Categories: Chevrolet,General Motors,Pontiac,Trucks

Full-size truck sales may have plummeted over the last two years, but that doesn't mean this segment is just going to go away. During the Detroit auto show, both General Motors and Nissan said they're working on redesigns of their full-size pickups, the Silverado/Sierra and Titan respectively.

The Chevrolet Silverado-GMC Sierra redesign was already in the plans but had been delayed by GM's bankruptcy. Now it has been approved at a cost of several hundred million dollars.

The Titan's future had looked far more doubtful after Nissan's short-lived partnership with Chrysler ended, eliminating any possibility of Nissan doing up its own version of the next-generation Ram. However, Mike Levine of PickupTrucks.com interviewed Larry Dominique, Nissan's vice president of product strategy, who told him that Nissan will go ahead and engineer a new Titan in-house. The tentative launch date is 2014.

Interestingly, Dominique again raised the idea that Nissan might build a heavy-duty three-quarter-ton version of the Titan. Such a truck would share its architecture with a possible production version of the NV2500, the commercial van concept Nissan unveiled in late 2008.

Detroit News, PickupTrucks.com

Categories: Chevrolet,GMC,Nissan,Trucks

#NAIAS During the afternoon press conference for the Chevrolet Aveo RS concept, Mike Simcoe, GM's North American design director, went out of his way to make it known that the production Aveo will be sporty(ish). It's "European-inspired," he said, not to mention "aimed at young buyers and enthusiasts."

In talking to GM Vice President Bob Lutz afterward, we learned there might actually be some basis for that claim. The production Chevrolet Aveo, which launches in 2011, will be based on the European-market Opel Corsa.

Indeed, said Lutz, "that's the whole purpose of the exercise.

"But the Aveo and Corsa will be entirely different cars. The customer can drive them back-to-back and never be able to tell that they're from the same architecture. That's how we save a lot of money."

In addition, he said, the Aveo RS is likely to share plenty of parts with the hot-hatch version of the Opel, the Corsa OPC.

"Anything the Corsa OPC gets, we can, of course, pick up for the Aveo, provided it meets emissions. European emissions standards are a little more lax than American ones, so we might not be able to pick up the full OPC treatment, but for certain all of the OPC parts that are available for Europe can immediately get on the Aveo for over here."

The Opel RS concept on stage is said to have the 138-horsepower turbocharged 1.4-liter inline four-cylinder that will be used in the Chevrolet Cruze. The Corsa OPC, on the other hand, has a turbocharged 1.6-liter good for 192 hp. Of course, that engine might or might not be capable of meeting U.S. emissions standards.

2010 Detroit Auto Show: Chevrolet Aveo RS

Categories: Chevrolet,Detroit Auto Show,Future Vehicles,Hatchbacks

Fuzzy photos of the Chevrolet Aveo RS Concept leaked early, and now here are the official, heavily Photoshopped images of the subcompact hatchback ahead of its debut at the 2010 Detroit Auto Show next week.

We expect it will look a bit more like a real car under the fluorescent lighting of the Cobo Center, but the Aveo RS is still very much a concept car -- a look at the styling direction for the next-generation Aveo rather than a firm commitment to build a hot hatch on par with, say, the European-market Opel Corsa OPC. The concept Aveo is said to have a 138-hp version of the turbocharged, 1.4-liter inline four-cylinder that will power the Chevrolet Cruze.

We have seen the actual production Aveo, however, and although we weren't allowed to take photos, we can attest it looks pretty good.

We also know that the next Aveo will still be called the Aveo (yes, indeed... GM is committed to rehabilitating the nameplate's image). And it will slot in-between the upcoming Chevy Spark (which is even smaller) and the Cruze.

That's about all we know for now, other than the name of this flamboyant blue paint: Boracay Blue. It's also used on the comically large brake calipers (visible behind the 19-inch wheels) and the stitching in the cabin.

2010 Detroit Auto Show unveil page

Categories: Chevrolet,Detroit Auto Show,Future Vehicles,Hatchbacks

Data Source: Edmunds Inc.

Categories: Auto Industry,Chevrolet,Ford,Honda,Manufacturers,Nissan,Toyota

GM confirmed last week -- via Twitter -- that an all-new Chevrolet Aveo with an RS badge will debut at next week's 2010 Detroit Auto Show.

And this afternoon, somebody, somewhere in the world, got hold of a magazine or pamphlet featuring the Aveo RS and shot these. Yay.

CarSpyShots via Jalopnik

Categories: Chevrolet,Detroit Auto Show,Hatchbacks