Today’s commercial, entitled “2012,” stars the Chevrolet Silverado in a post-apocalyptic world. In this ad, Chevy reminds us of its oft-repeated statistic that its trucks are the longest lasting, most dependable trucks on the road, and it does so by imagining that the Mayans were right and that 2012 is our last year on Earth.

Super Bowl commercials are big business, with multimillion-dollar 30-second spots and productions that seem to get more costly and elaborate every year. General Motors bucked that trend by giving independent film makers the opportunity to make their own 60-second spot, with the winner having their ad played in front of an estimated 110 million viewers during The Big Game.

That’s not entirely a criticism, as in this class of cars some style is needed, if for no other reason than to distract you from some of the corners that get cut in the interest of affordability. Indeed, the Sonic has a few interior shortcomings, most notably the coarse headliner, which seems less like a finished product than the substrate for one. While the dash is a broad expanse of grey plastics, just as you’d expect, that didn’t bother us at all. The “leatherette” seating did, as it’s got a rubbery taxicab texture that should either be upgraded to real hide, or just be banished altogether. The cloth seats we’ve enjoyed in other Chevys are much preferred.

Speaking of which, under the hood of our Sonic was the same 1.8-liter, four-cylinder that serves as the budget engine option in the Cruze, making the same 138 horsepower and 125 lb-ft of torque as in its bigger brother. The 1.8-liter Ecotec provides ample motivation, but we’d be lying if we didn’t say we were disappointed our Sonic was not equipped with the available 1.4-liter turbo, also shared with the Cruze. Doubling down on that disappointment was the transmission, as our Sonic was saddled with a six-speed automatic. Sonics with the 1.8-liter can be had with a five-speed manual transmission, while the tranny in the 1.4-liter has an extra gear. The automatic will probably serve the interests of the commuter crowd well enough, but we found it annoying – and not just because we would have preferred to do the shifting ourselves. The automatic transmission in our Sonic shifted rather slowly and wasn’t particularly smooth either. Even the Sonic auto-box’s manual shift mode is GM’s standard button-on-the-shifter design that requires moving the shifter to the manual detent before using the shift buttons, and the whole thing is too much of a pain to bother with.

We would be more willing to issue a pass on the automatic transmission if we felt like it were set up for maximum fuel economy, but here is where insult piled atop injury. We only saw 29 miles per gallon overall during our week in the Sonic, in which we traveled some 600 miles, the majority on the highway. Yet this wasn’t unusually low, as it’s right in line with the EPA combined estimate of 28. It’s the 1.4-liter Sonic manual that posts the impressive fuel economy numbers, hitting 40 mpg on the highway and still returning 29 in town. Our 1.8-liter Sonic’s official numbers are just 25 city and 35 highway, which just doesn’t seem good enough when the plain-Jane Ford Fiesta automatic is rated at 29/39 and the three-year-old Honda Fit even gets an EPA combined rating of 31.

Source: AutoBlog

We’ll get into an analysis of the tricks that makes the Cruze Eco special, but first let’s emphasize what GM didn’t do to punch up the Eco’s mileage. This is a car without any hybrid technology, not even a mild hybrid system like the eAssist system GM deployed on the Buick LaCrosse and has planned for the 2013 Chevrolet Malibu Eco. There’s no start-stop system to aid Cruze Eco’s 28 miles per gallon city fuel economy rating. In fact, the Cruze Eco’s turbocharged 1.4-liter four-cylinder doesn’t even use direct injection to make its 138 horsepower and 148 lb-ft of torque.

Source: AutoBlog

As such, engineers from General Motors have been working on the car’s development for over three years, and today they released a video featurette showing the concept’s first run out in the real world. According to the video, engineers ran the car all day long with a number of engine set ups and it “met or exceeded” all expectations.

Based on the long-wheelbase version of the Epsilon 2 platform, the reimagined Impala is set to be powered by a choice of either GM’s 3.6-liter V6 or its recently revealed 270-horsepower, turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder. An eAssist version is also likely to be offered soon after its debut.

Inside, we get a glimpse of a reworked interior that’s more plush than the current model, complete with leather dash and trim, tasteful aluminum accents and a sizable nav screen front-and-center.

The exterior is harder to gauge, but the ride height is noticeably lower, the roof and windshield more raked and the front fascia has taken on a pointed, Camaro-esque shape. We should know more in the coming months before Chevy takes the wraps off in the first half of the year.

Source: AutoBlog

General Motors has announced that the world’s most powerful production droptop* – the 2013 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 Convertible – will officially debut at the 2011 Los Angeles Auto Show in November. Like its coupe kin, the ZL1 Convertible will pack 580 horsepower and 556 pound-feet of torque from its supercharged 6.2-liter LSA V8, besting the Ford Shelby GT500 Convertible’s power figures of 550 hp and 510 lb-ft.

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The Camaro ZL1 coupe goes on sale in early 2012, and we’d expect the convertible to arrive shortly thereafter. We’ll have the full details in Los Angeles next month, but for now, hit the jump for GM’s official release.

Source: General Motors

For decades now, an overwhelming majority of America’s policemen and women have relied on the four-wheeled equivalent of a blunt object, the Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor, as a primary tool in combating crime. Stubbornly resistant to change since its introduction during the Carter administration, the Crown Vic proudly rode its pig iron and scrimshaw frame into retirement earlier this month, a victim of growing legislative hurdles and slowing sales. Yet despite – or perhaps because of – its antiquated technology and crude construction, precincts far and wide have been clawing over each other to secure the last few examples.

GM believes it has a better way: 2012 Chevrolet Caprice Police Patrol Vehicle. Company officials say they are so cognizant of the unique needs of law enforcement that they’ve designed and built this special pursuit vehicle specifically for their use. GM has divulged no plans to park a civilian version in your Bowtie showroom and you won’t be seeing them in New York yellow, either. This is a purpose-built piece of kit. Of course, the truth is a bit more complicated than that. The Caprice PPV is actually a lightly modified version of GM’s long-wheelbase Zeta sedans that are marketed in Australia as the Holden Caprice and in the Middle East as… well, a Chevy Caprice. GM recently offered ordinary U.S. consumers a shorter Zeta, in the form of the well liked but short-lived Pontiac G8, but it expired when its brand was shuttered.

Source: AutoBlog