AutoWeek First Drive of the Malibu

[hyperv6]

The November 5th issue of Autoweek offers great praise for the new Malibu.

They praised the ride, styling, handling, trunks space, fit and finish.

They dislikes the dash lights and the location of the paddle shifters on the wheel.

Overall they feel they it the mark and said they were very impress after back to back drives in the Toyota. Som in the group compare the car the the VW Passat.

They said the ride is a littler firmer than the avverage Chevy but that is what they need to attract the new buyers. The car tested was the LTZ.

They also noted the Chrome trim was a great touch.

They were also impressed it was the first Chevy to attract attention [outside of the Vette] in a long time. They said many young people were interested in the car that could bode well for future sales.

They summed it up as the Aura was a very good car and this one shows the improvemnts of the extra time they developed this car since the Auras arrival.

Chevy may just have the car they needed, now they only have to convice the public to try it.

[CARBIZ]

Well, I've looked at the lease and finance numbers for our market and GM is doing the right thing: lease rate of 2.75% and finance rate of 3.3%. Those are outstanding numbers for an introductory vehicle. With a high residual value, the LS Malibu is about the same as a mid-level Civic.

[PurdueGuy]

GM building the Aura in general seems like it worked out very well for them.

A) it gave Saturn a legit midsize car

B) it let GM build a sort of "Malibu Beta version", and work more details out before introducing the volume product

C) the next gen Aura will be a rebadged Vectra, so the "badge engineering" isn't going to result in lots of US brands having essentially the same car for very long, assuming the next gen Vectra is substantially different from the Malibu/G6.

Seems like a product dance that could work out very well for GM.