Actually, when you get to know how deep this facelift went you’ll notice that calling it “a different car” is a great example of pushing things too hard. Given that Cruze managed to be a sales success in America, Europe, Oceania and Asia, Chevrolet wasn’t exactly in a rush to perform any changes at all. But any smart entrepreneur knows that even the most solid market performance can be completely unstable in time. As if seeing its competitors change wasn’t enough, the very Cruze has just debuted a new generation in China. Even though that car will be produced only in that country and will be offered only there, such arrival can’t help being a reminder of the fact that the original one isn’t getting any younger.
There will be a new Cruze for the rest of the world, indeed, and it’s expected to be based on the Chinese brother. However, such delay was motivated mostly by a decision of the own automaker, which is only a deeper thought away of being considered reasonable – GM takes benefit of selling a successful product a little longer, while its buyers have more time before dealing with the depreciation of a phased-out model. Therefore, since the current Cruze will need to hang on for a couple more years, the North-American Chevrolet performed a tiny redesign on it, just like what the South-Korean did with its own Cruze two years ago – sans its very interesting station wagon, unfortunately. But this one wasn’t inspired on Sonic or Spark.
As the pictures show, this article’s sedan has borrowed the styling cues developed in the past few years for those Chevrolets sold exclusively in North America. A closer look can remember of Impala and Traverse, too, but this task gets much easier if your mind gets crossed by the latest Malibu. This is the sibling from which Cruze took that front grille, which is still divided by a colored strip on which the company logo goes, but now features more rounded lines. It’s hard to say that applying that to a vehicle whose entire project was based on straight lines was a great idea, but GM stil takes credit for not working too hard on it. Since the original design has worked so well in all these years, investing on deeper partial updates would be taking risks as expensive as unnecessary.
Other news include lower daytime LEDs at some trims, revised cup holders and the dashboard letting the door-lock buttons go (to the doors) and receiving the trunk-release one. When it comes to equipments, the company’s latest MyLink system appeared once again, which can have a built-in 4G LTE data connection. Such technology gives access to an app shop, turns the car into a Wi-Fi hotspot and improves the connection with Apple products. Everything else remained untouched, like the trim list (LS, LT, LTZ and RS) and the powertrain options: there’s a 138-hp, 125-lb-ft 1.8L as standard, which can be upgraded for the 138-hp, 148-lb-ft turbocharged 1.4L or replaced by the fuel-efficient, 151-hp turbo-diesel 2.0L.