Tourists will like the turn signal: it finishes each blink regardless of when you release the stalk, so you don't make amateurish half-blinks in traffic. Punch the "Info" button on the steering to cycle through MPG, distance-to-empty, outside temperature and tire pressure stats. Step into the driver's bucket, and- hey, lookitthat!- the cupholders for your airport coffee are located ahead of the shifter, so you needn't bend your shifting arm around your java. The only interesting design element is the… nope. The Cobalt's soft, flavorless lines are designed to be as inoffensive to Walter from Topeka as they are to Kelli from the Tenderloin. Slam it shut and run your eyes along the sheetmetal, and… well… you won't notice anything. There, they'll find 13.9 cubic feet of space (way more than a Honda Civic's rear cubby) and dainty gas struts, (which won't crush your luggage like the gooseneck hinges on a Corolla). So, where do renters go first? To the trunk, of course, to dump off their suitcases.
It's an appropriate venue to meet the Cobalt everything about it suggests that it was engineered so badly it Hertz. Doing so got me a four-door Cobalt LS, resplendent (kind of) in Victory Red with plastic hubcaps, devoid of high mileage stress. If you need a refresher course as to how that turned out, head down to your local Enterprise office and ask for the basic $20/day buzz box. The Cobalt has to be better than competing small cars to get the market to notice." According to the buff-book bluster, "Lutz told engineers not to hold back on the good stuff and… they'll get that money back and more in reduced rebates." Another gem: "Lutz says being competitive isn't enough. The Cobalt, you'll remember, was launched to similar fanfare in 2005. So things will be different this time, right? Just like they were going to be different three years ago, when the Cobalt was released? The Cobalt I rented this weekend? Bah, humbug, I say. "In North America, we never did a good small car," Ed Welburn mea culpaed. A compact come-to-Jesus from the higher-ups quickly followed, delivered by GM's Design Chief.
"All hail the new Cruze!" shouted the GM Kool-Aid Klub, apparent fans of intentional misspelling. A couple of weeks ago, grainy images portending GM's bright, small-car-driven future "leaked" onto the Web.
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