By John LeBlanc for MSN Autos Canada
If the commercial van seen above wearing a Chevrolet bow tie looks vaguely familiar, that’s because it’s a rebadged Nissan. This week, America’s General Motors confirmed it would sell a version of the existing Nissan NV200 Compact Cargo commercial van as the Chevrolet City Express in the U.S. and Canada.
By Mark Atkinson for MSN Autos
One of the more bizarre trends in the car business is that regardless of fuel-price spikes and worries about household debt levels, automakers keep adding more and more luxury pickup trucks. Ford bolstered its F-150 line with a Limited package, Toyota added its own Platinum trim to the Tundra, and now Chevrolet is joining the frey with its redesigned 2014 Silverado.
The new High Country mimics what GMC has done with its Denali sub-brand, meaning a truck that'll shame plenty of luxury vehicles with the levels of chrome, look-at-me styling and toys. Rather than the more urban flavour found in Denali models, the High Country goes, well, country. The High Country gets its own chrome grille with chrome bars to match its 20-inch - wait for it - chrome wheels. (See the pattern here?) It gets colour-matched bumpers (gasp!), but the exterior mirrors, door handles and side mouldings are chrome too.
The interior uses what Chevrolet calls "authentic" materials. Strange choice of words... Otherwise, the High Country gets plenty of toys, meaning an eight-inch MyLink touchscreen radio with upgraded Bose audio, heated-and-cooled saddle-brown leather seats, and park assist. Options include a power moonroof, navigation, rear-seat entertainment system, and a premium package which includes things like a heated steering wheel, some active safety systems and trailer brake control.
Engine-wise, the High Country uses the same next-gen 5.3-litre EcoTec3 V8 with 355 horsepower and 383 lb-ft of torque while the larger 6.2-litre version will be available; every Silverado now uses a six-speed automatic transmission and the HC will be available with either rear- or four-wheel drive.
Do you like what Chevrolet's done with the High Country? Prefer offerings from Ram or Ford or Toyota? Find the whole thing an enormous waste of time? Let us know!
By John LeBlanc for MSN Autos
Save for its ill-fated Corvair from the 1960s and the equally unremarkable Monza a decade later, General Motors’ Chevrolet brand has never had a compact, rear-wheel-drive performance sports coupe to sell below its iconic Camaro and Corvette. But a report from Automotive News says the idea of a smaller-than-a-Camaro Chevy two-door is being considered.
"A really nice, light, rear-drive car that's inexpensive — we know that rings a bell," so says GM North America president Mark Reuss.
If you remember, Chevrolet unveiled a pair of compact coupe concepts at the 2012 Detroit auto show: the rear-wheel-drive Code 130R (seen above) and the front-wheel-drive Tru 140S. The Code 130R looked like a mini-Camaro or a BMW 1 Series, while the Tru 140S was obviously designed to take on import-brand small coupes like the Hyundai Veloster or Scion tC.
At the show, Chevy officials said feedback from customers was going to help them decide which concept to move forward with on the path to production. And although Reuss won’t say the Code 130R concept is heading to production, "Really strong" feedback on the concept from young people has fueled his desire to bring a small, RWD Chevy coupe to showrooms.
Needless-to-day, the favourable attention Toyota has garnered (from driving enthusiasts and enthusiastic media) for its rear-wheel-drive Scion FR-S and Subaru BRZ clones is influencing GM’s decision. And any product that will get smartphone-loving young buyers into a Chevy showroom would be a huge accomplishment.
What do you think? If you are under the age of 30 years, would you consider a small, fun-to-drive Chevy coupe? Or is the GM brand too associated with aging Baby Boomers?
Source: Automotive News
By John LeBlanc for MSN Autos
If you’re just getting use to the idea of having to keep track of six instead of five or four gears in your car’s gearbox, you may want to stop reading this article now. More than likely, your next new vehicle will have more gears than a mechanical watch.
By Mark Atkinson for MSN Autos
Detroit is in a big push to get its mojo back. The city's been the subject of several car advertising campaighs recently, including the famous Chrysler spot with Eminem debuting at the Super Bowl a few years back. The town that put North America on wheels is in serious decline, though, having lost most of its population to downsizing and outsourcing, leaving a ghostly industrial shell behind.
Things are starting to improve, though. The North American International Auto Show regained its stature as the place to be after more than a few years of cutbacks and manufacturer pull-outs. The Detroit Grand Prix is one of three events that'll hold double-header races in this year's IndyCar series, and the products coming out of the Big 3 are more competitive than ever.
In another bid to help rebuild, the city is hoping to land the 2014 Summer X Games, which would be a serious coup. More than 250,000 people attend the annual event, which would bring an immense amount of tourism bucks and city spirit. California has had not only the greatest number of X Games (15), but also the longest stretch (10 years straight at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.) The first two were held in Rhode Island and Vermont while Philadelphia got a couple years in the early '00s, but otherwise it's been a west-coast special.
Sure, most of the Summer X Games events are things like skateboarding and BMX, but the big numbers and highlights come from the ones with engines: Motocross and rallycross. Maybe that's why the first thing shown in the short promo video for the bid is Tanner Foust flaying his 600-horsepower Ford Fiesta RS Rallycross car around an abandoned downtown parking lot. That's before the dude on the bike and the guy holding a skateboard.
Anyway, we're all for a move to Detroit, if for no other reason that it'll be more accessible to a greater number of Canadians. Detroit is well within a day's drive for all of Southern Ontario and plenty of Quebec as well. And think of how well Windsor would do when all the spectators need someplace to stay? Win-win.
What do you think? Worth the effort? Too little too late?
h/t to Jalopnik.com
By Mark Atkinson for MSN Autos
When the latest SRT Viper debuted a year ago at the New York Auto Show, it garnered plenty of attention for its more civilized interior and convenience toys. Those toys must have bothered some hardcore Viper fans since the only concessions to comfort found in the first two generations were a lousy radio and air conditioning...
Now, a year later and SRT has an answer to all the critics who called the new Viper compromised and unfinished. The Viper TA - or Time Attack - is a factory-designed performance machine bred exclusively for on-track work. Think of it like a Porsche 911 GT3 or Mustang Boss 302 Laguna Seca compared with their 'regular' road-biased siblings.
By John LeBlanc for MSN Autos
On sale later this year, General Motors is previewing its new 2014 Chevrolet Impala in San Diego, California this week. No doubt, you’ll read forthcoming reports that the 2014 version is a much better vehicle than the out going version. Seeing how the current Impala uses a platform first seen in 1988, that shouldn’t be a stretch. But as much of an improvement the new Impala should be over the outoing model, how much different is than than other similarly packaged sedans in General Motors' lineup?
By John LeBlanc for MSN Autos Canada
Just as the rest of the auto industry starts to cool on the idea of electric cars, General Motors says it’s working on a new type of electric vehicle with a range of 200 miles — or 322 kilometres. To put that in perspective, the current Chevrolet Volt’s pure-electric range is just 62-km and the 2014 Chevrolet Spark EV (seen above at its world debut at last year's Los Angeles auto shwo) is expected to be able to go about 120-km between recharges.
By Mark Atkinson for MSN Autos
Jimmie Johnson won his second-ever Daytona 500 on Sunday afternoon, despite not leading many laps along the way. Johnson restarted in the lead with only six laps to go, and despite a charge by Earnhardt Jr. and Mark Martin, Johnson wasn't really challenged at the checkers.
“It’s a very, very proud moment. Plate racing has been a little tough on the 48 the last few years," Johnson said.
It was the first win for Chevrolet with its new Gen-6 SS racecar, and it also took six of the top-10 finishers. Ford had three while Toyota had only one, although it was third-placed Martin.
Matt Kenseth, Jeff Gordon and Denny Hamlin were the most dominant in terms of laps led, but finished poorly in 37th, 20th and 14th respectively.
For those wondering, Danica Patrick set another record on Sunday by becoming the first woman to lead a Cup race at Daytona. She was racy all day and was into the mix until the final lap where she dropped from second to eighth.
Bad luck also gave Patrick's teammate and boss Tony Stewart a headache when he wrecked out early despite having won the infamous crash-filled Nationwide race the night before. Despite being Sprint Cup champ at least twice, he's never won the big one at Daytona.
Overall, the race turned out to be more a snoozer than NASCAR was hoping for. Apparently the Gen-6 cars were safe enough on their first outing, but it was difficult to pass and run two or three wide. However, the focus for the new Sprint Cup cars is to improve the 'show' at the mid-sized 'mile-and-a-half' tracks that make up the bulk of the schedule, not the two-mile 'plate' tracks like Daytona and Talladega.
Did you watch the race? What did you think? Were you rooting for Danica to win or crash out? Let us know in the comments.
Justin Couture
Reportedly, the first word to come out of his mouth was "car," and since then it's evolved into a life-long passion. Justin is a fan of passionately engineered vehicles, but in general, loves the industry as much as the cars it produces. Justin is the Assistant Editor of MSN Autos, and manages The Passing Lane.
Mark Atkinson
Mark has a decade’s experience driving and writing about thousands of vehicles, and two decades before as an inveterate car nut and race fan. He’s also a first-time father, so you’ll need to excuse the occasional half-awake daddy rant about how his daughter’s car-seat won’t fit.
John LeBlanc
After a career in advertising and marketing, John decided to turn his jaundiced eye towards the world of cars. Since then, he's become one of Canada's most vociferous critics of the industry, delivering objective analysis of the new car scene.
