Chevy announced today that they plan to debut the US production version of the Cruze sedan and Volt electric car at the Los Angeles Auto Show on December 2, 2009.

The Chevy Cruze is already available in many markets overseas, and is just coming here to the States, slightly modified. The Cruze is expected to get up to 40 mpg on the highway, surpassing the fuel economy of any other gas-only sedan currently on the market. The Cruze boasts more interior room than both a Honda Civic and Toyota Corolla, along with plenty of standard options like navigation and Bluetooth.

The Chevy Cruze will be available in the third quarter of 2010. Available engines include small-displacement turbocharged powerplants that focus on fuel economy, including a 1.4-liter turbo engine.

The Chevy Volt, as I’m sure you’ve heard, is an electric-centric hybrid, meaning it runs on only electric power for the first 40 miles or so, then if more juice is needed for your commute, the gas engine kicks in to recharge the batteries. 40 miles, Chevy calculated, is a little more than the average work-and-back commute distance of most Americans, which will (in theory) allow Volt drivers to very rarely need to use the gas engine during normal driving. This way of running a hybrid is smarter than we’re used to, and Chevy says as a result the Volt will return the equivalent of 230 mpg around town. Not bad.

The Volt will be available in late 2010 only to selected markets (i.e. California,) and pricing has not yet been announced.

Since yesterday’s Ford street rod was so well received, I think it’s time to give Chevy their due. The General Motors division, in addition to bringing along a raft of custom Camaros to this year’s SEMA show, also produced along a rather tastefully done up 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air with an attractively finished LS3 crate motor dropped into the engine bay.

Not bad … not bad …

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Looks like Reeves Callaway is still around, just ask Rick Hendrick. Yes, that would be the same Callaway that made factory authorized twin turbo Vettes back in the late 80s. And then started making his own Vette based sports cars for years after that. And yes, that’s the same Hendrick Motorsports that is to NASCAR what the Yankees are to baseball. So the two teamed up to make a fairly impressive 25th Anniversary 2010 Camaro SS that they’ll show at SEMA and sell a limited run of later on.

Camaros look to be the it car of this year’s SEMA show. There’s custom Camaros from Hurst, Lingenfelter, and Yenko, to name just three, and every time I check my in box, there’s some custom shop I’ve never heard of that is bringing their own version of the evergreen Camaro to SEMA.

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Now that small crossovers have become the best selling SUVs, GM seems to be in a difficult position. They’ve always excelled at producing big, heavy trucks and SUVs, but the Japanese automakers like Toyota and Honda are where it’s at for the smaller stuff. The Toyota RAV4 and Honda CR-V have a stranglehold on the small SUV market, and Chevy’s offering - the Equinox - was lost in the rest of the crowd due to its lack of personality, originality, and quality.

For 2010, however, Chevy intends to change that. They completely redesigned the Equinox this year inside and out, and gave it more options and standard features, different engines, a (gasp) refined interior, and above all, a bit of personality. Does the new 2010 Chevy Equinox have what it takes to stand up against the market leaders? Continue Reading…

GeigerCars, a German tuning company that focuses on American sports cars, brought over the 638 horsepower Corvette ZR1 and gave it some German engineering. The result? A 710 hp monster they call the “Geiger GTS.”

Specifying little more than “diverse tuning measures” in the press release, we don’t quite know exactly what Geiger did to the ZR1, but one can assume it has a tuned ECU, higher boosted supercharger, and a modified exhaust, at the very least. The significant increase in power helps the Geiger GTS go from 0-62 mph in only 3.6 seconds, and hit an incredible top speed of 212 mph. Continue Reading…

The release of the new 2010 Chevy Camaro marks a momentous occasion. Not because it brings back a beloved musclecar, or because it completes the Big Three’s modern muscle car offerings, but because it is the first Chevrolet product that I’ve ever considered buying. This is a big deal!

I’m just gonna put it out there - the 2010 Chevy Camaro is a Rock Star. Nowhere else can you buy a car for under $25K that gets so much attention, so many thumbs-ups, so many people waving and yelling at you. Before Chevy dropped off our Rally Yellow Camaro to review, the rep warned me - “Add 20 minutes to each trip you make, Chris. People will stop you to talk about the car, take pictures, and it will take at least 20 minutes of your time each trip.” “That’s funny,” I thought, not realizing that he wasn’t exaggerating. Within the first hour of having the car, our Photographer Christine got stopped by a police officer just to talk about the Camaro, which took about 10 minutes.

The amazing thing here is that the new Camaro deserves 100% of this attention. Not only is it (in my opinion) the best looking car to sit on Chevy showrooms for at least 30 years, but it’s actually a great car. It’s as if GM officials held a meeting in 2006 in which they said “Alright guys, we had a good run. Now we need to start making good cars again. Let’s start it off with a bang.” And that they did… Continue Reading…