ROAD TEST CHEVROLET KALOS: Smart enough, but not too clever

You have guessed, I expect, that it’s the Daewoo. But Daewoo officially no longer exists, as far as the UK buying public is concerned. A brand with non-existent-to-negative connotations has been ousted by a brand steeped in Americana and the cultural cliche of the ‘57 Chevy Bel Air. But why has General Motors done this? Because it could, and because buyers’ brand perceptions tend not to be finely focused at this end of the market. To own a Chevy is, on the whole, a cool thing. To own a Daewoo emphatically was not.

.fa_inline_results, .fa_inline_results.left {
margin-right: 20px;
margin-top: 0;
width: 220px;
clear: left;
}
.fa_inline_results.right {
margin-left: 20px;
margin-right: 0;
}
.fa_inline_results h4 {
margin: 0;
font-size: 8pt;
line-height: 12px;
padding-bottom: 4px;
border-bottom: 1px dotted #c3d2dc;
}
.fa_inline_results ul {
list-style-type: disc;
list-style-position: inside;
color: #3769DD;
margin: 0 0 15px;
padding: 0;
}
.fa_inline_results ul li {
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
}
.fa_inline_results ul li.title {
color: #333;
list-style-type: none;
font-weight: bold;
}
.fa_inline_results ul li.articles {
color: #333;
list-style-type: none;
}

Most Popular Publications
in News

Journal of Economic …Chicago Sun-Times M2 Presswire Daily Herald …Oakland Tribune More »

There will be resistance to the strange concept of a Chevrolet supermini for a while, but we’ll get over it. The idea is to sell Euro-sized Chevrolets as a value brand, just as US-sized (that is, much larger) Chevrolets are sold in the US as a value brand. GM is keen to point out that one car in every 16 worldwide is a Chevrolet, and that the brand (for it is clearly no longer a make) is sold in 90 countries. Even our own Vauxhall Corsa is a Chevrolet in Latin America.

So Daewoo dealers have become Chevrolet dealers, and the three- year warranty and free servicing package continues. All the current Daewoo range now wears a Chevrolet badge (but you can’t re-assign an identity to pre-owned Daewoos), and some have had cosmetic adjustments to their faces to suit.

Daewoo isn’t dead, though; it continues in its native Korea and in Vietnam, for example (any historical significance there, I wonder?), and also in some central European countries, where you can still buy the old, pre-GM-ownership Daewoos made in factories not adopted by GM after the great Daewoo bankruptcy. New cars are coming - the S3X compact 4×4 arrives soon, a new Matiz baby car sooner - and there will be diesels built in conjunction with Italian engine- maker VM Motori. The Chevrolet-badged diesel car will become a reality.

For now, though, GM’s new entry-level brand, the brand that gives Vauxhall a chance to edge upmarket like Volkswagen, because there’s now something more blue-collar, is fanfared by the arrival of the car you see here. It’s the three-door version of the car we’ve already seen, in five-door form, as the Daewoo Kalos. The Kalos is the best-selling supermini in the US, where they call it a Chevrolet Aveo (the car as branded commodity, versus the car as identifiable, sacrosanct creation: discuss), and the three-door version is a little cheaper and a little sportier.

It may sell especially well in Spain, given that country’s gossip magazine’s current obsession with “Carlos y Camilla”, but don’t expect that to be the basis of an ad campaign. There is something unusual about this Kalos. Apart from the ageing but still cute Ford Ka, no other very cheap supermini has three doors, even though it was once the norm for the sector. So, that in itself could boost its appeal.

There are two three-door Kaloses - there is probably a more authentic- sounding Greek plural I should use: the cheaper one costing pounds 6,995, for which you get electric windows and power steering; the pricier one at pounds 8,395, which adds air conditioning, alloy wheels and a 1.4-litre engine instead of a 1.2.

That’s 1.2 as in the old Triumph Herald 1200, which should really have been a Triumph 1100 by virtue of its 1,147cc capacity. This bending of the truth troubled me as a child, and the 1,148cc Kalos is only slightly less naughty. But I’ll live with it. The cheapest five-door Kalos is pounds 7,895, incidentally, for which you get conditioned air to go with your extra doors.

Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.