Do you remember how did General Motors manage to recover from the ‘2009 crisis? The North-American division had to close marques and drop poor-selling cars to optimize the profits. The Brazilian, in turn, interrupted its renovation plans in order to delay requesting new investments. There were other strategies elsewhere too, but a common fact is that most of this recovery is just being finished in nowadays. This is the perfect time, therefore, to start replacing the workarounds with not only definitive, but truly strong solutions.
The only Brazilian Chevrolet conceived during those times was Agile, released in 2009. This project suffered specially with the terrible timing, because the investments were stalled precisely at the moment when, in normal conditions, that division had planned to receive some of GM’s latest global platforms. The results were constructing the new compact on two-decades older underpinnings and freezing the rest of the line until the company’s overall situation could restore some stability. Malibu’s problems emerged because its current generation was created under a very similar situation, although with different proportions. Using Epsilon II’s short-wheelbase version resulted on too small rear-seat room (it is shorter than the outgoing car), while the elevated weight prevented the car from achieving the originally intended consumption rates. As if this wasn’t enough, that sedan’s design wasn’t so attractive as what was expected. Since the new Malibu’s acceptance started to decline among both press and public, GM decided to perform an urgent facelift for 2014, pretty much like what Honda did with the current Civic – it’s interesting to observe that the “corrected” version arrived eighteen months after the original generation’s release in both cases. Since it was impossible to perform deeper changes, Chevrolet invested on redesigning the cabin’s elements to increase that room.
The new cushions allows passengers to sit deeper and bring smaller edges, while the front seatbacks were narrowed. Besides that, the console received a longer and more comfortable armrest, whose covered storage area has two cup holders and two cell phone bins. When it comes to the driving, chassis and suspension received some tweaks, to improve body roll control, while the brakes were revised and the standard electric steering received new calibration, gaining better feel. The 2.5L engine received start/stop system as standard and the Intake Valve Lift Control, to make better torque distribution and reduce emissions, but dropped the numbers to 196 hp of power and 186 lb-ft of torque. The turbocharged 2.0L stayed at 259 hp but now reaches 295 lb-ft – there’s no information about the revised hybrid version so far. The last item to comment is what the pictures show clearly: Malibu became so better-looking because the front grille’s change was fascinating. Chevrolet managed to create a new interpretation of its famous two-part design, where the upper was widened to connect both headlights and the lower received an independent shape. It fits this car size much better than the original, making it sportier and more imponent yet still reminding of the other Chevys. Makes a nice lesson to Volkswagen and specially Audi, don’t you think?
