In spite of the general trend toward bigger and beefier pickups and SUVs, there’s a segment of the marketplace that’s always going to go for the flyweights.  Proud Ford Festiva and Geo Metro drivers (I’ve met more than a few) haven’t been well served in recent years.  The Honda Insight isn’t very practical, and the Kia Rio, while related to the departed Ford Aspire under the skin, just doesn’t have the “small and proud of it” attitude of a Geo Metro.

Tiny-car fans rejoice!  The 2004 Chevrolet Aveo just might be …

Yes, it’s real.  The Chevrolet SSR started life as a dream truck that combined 1930s styling cues, 1990s hot-rod modifications, and a modern drivetrain.  Thanks to overwhelming public approval, the SSR made the leap from show car to showroom, and now it’s one of Chevy’s halo cars.  Is it really a truck?  Sort of.  Think of it as the coolest El Camino ever, and you’ll be on the right track.  In its second year on the market, Chevrolet’s big-boy toy gets a new powertrain to give it some serious go …

Because we watch far too much television, we’re tempted to compare the current crop of hot-rod pickup trucks to action movie stars.  Ford’s fast and furious F-150 Lightning puts us in mind of Bruce Lee, taking all comers with unbeatable moves and a signature scream.  The upcoming Dodge SRT-10 is more of a hulking Arnold Schwarzenegger with its powerful Viper-derived V10 and muscular body.  And Chevrolet’s new Silverado SS appears to be the Harrison Ford of the group; a bit frumpy perhaps in comparison, but with a resume that includes …

Sometimes when a car’s redesigned, the engineers and product planners take the opportunity to rethink it from the ground up, resulting in an entirely new concept that bears nothing but the name of the previous car. The whole personality of the car is changed, for better or for worse.

The 2004 Chevrolet Malibu is not an example of this.  Although it’s completely new, with a global platform that injects a dose of European engineering into this most American of nameplates, we predict that very few onlookers will have trouble recognizing the …

Compact pickups have traditionally been long-lived platforms–that is, they soldiered along for years in the showroom without significant updates–but even by this standard, Chevrolet’s S-10 was long in the tooth. Around since the early 1990s, the little pickups suffered mightily in comparison to the competition, even to Ford’s Ranger, which is no spring chicken itself. Frankly, it was kind of embarrassing–even the cool Xtreme sport pickup seemed a bit old as soon as it hit the streets.

Chevy fans, take heart; the S-10 is no more, either in name or in …

When I pulled up to the curb to pick him up, my friend asked, “Didn’t you get one of your test cars this week?”  Considering that I had just picked up a 2003 Chevrolet Cavalier, this didn’t seem like a good sign.

The Cavalier has been around, well, forever.  Chevy’s bread-and-butter compact has been basically the same car since 1995 or so, and it shows, in both an overly familiar design and a tendency for Cavaliers to be rentacars.  That’s not an entirely bad thing, however.  Chevy has long made a …

The existence of do-all vehicles that are intended to do the work of a sedan, pickup truck, and sport-ute doesn’t come as a surprise in this age of multitasking.  What’s a real surprise is that there aren’t more of them.  If you’re looking for four doors and a small pickup bed and want a more carlike ride than is offered by a four-door pickup truck, you have a small choice, a medium choice, and a large choice.

Compared to the small (Subaru Baja) and medium (Ford Explorer Sport Trac) choices, this …

It’s like Mickey Rourke in sheet metal. And of course, I mean all of that in the nicest possible way, and not just because I’m afraid the Camaro will beat me up and take my lunch money.

Overall, the full-size van has not benefitted much from the popularity of minivans.  Families that would have once bought big vans are flocking to minivans and SUVs, leaving the big rear-drive boxes on wheels high and dry. It’s no surprise, either.  For the most part, big vans aren’t fun to drive and get dismal fuel economy.  While Dodge’s approach to this problem has been to drop full-sized vans entirely (Dodge’s Ram van goes away shortly), and Ford’s has been to more or less ignore it (Ford’s E-Series vans have been …

Full-size sport utilities used to be relatively rare.  Outside of wealthy ranches, there wasn’t much use for a wagon-style body on a pickup truck’s chassis–hence the nickname, “Texas Cadillac.”  Chevy’s always managed steady sales of its Suburban and short-wheelbase Tahoe models.  In recent years, however, the SUV craze has all but taken over the entire car market.  Now the “Texas Cadillac” is frequently seen doing the jobs that minivans used to do.  Sure, it’s engineered for hard work, but can the tough Chevy Tahoe handle suburbia?  It’s certainly civilized enough.  …