![]() Unfortunately, all of that honest goodness was lost trying to turn the Cavalier into a sporty convertible. For basic, somewhat comfortable transportation, it was hard to beat the Cavalier for value. In my first big-boy job with a national accrediting agency, I traveled around the country and had spent time in both previous and this generation Cavalier rentals, and was always impressed. With the 2.2-liter OHV engine and 3-speed automatic, the powertrain was guaranteed to outlast the rest of the car. It wasn’t unusual with a little haggling to drive away in a decently-equipped new Cavalier for about the price of a Tercel. What that meant was a perfectly reasonable MSRP which was enhanced by literally thousands and thousands of dollars in discounts and rebates all year long. GM had long since given up the comical delusion that the Cavalier was the up-market Accord competitor it had intended at its 1981 introduction. I stand by the statement that I make in the first paragraph, that the Chevy Cavalier was “one of the best economy car values in the U.S.” By 1999, the Cavalier was older than Methuselah, and the novelty of the 1995 “redesign” had pretty much worn off (Does throwing new body panels onto the Corsica/Beretta J-body-cousin-L-body platform and replacing the optional V6 with the latest version of the Quad-4 really count as a redesign?). Another in a series of my reviews that appeared in the online version of African Americans On Wheels, a now defunct automotive magazine that was included as an insert in the Sunday newspapers of major cities.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |