Chevrolet’s sedan lineup will soon be one of the freshest in the industry – boasting the all-new Sonic and Cruze as well as the recently unveiled 2013 Malibu – but there is one obvious outlier: The Chevrolet Impala.
An all-new version of the Chevy Impala was originally planned to debut this year on a rear-wheel drive platform, but the market crash of 2008 forced GM to scrap those plans. GM then placed a higher priority on bringing the Cruze and redesigned Malibu to market, pushing plans for a new Impala back to at least 2014.
The Impala is scheduled for a 2012 refresh, but that update won’t address the car’s aging W platform, which dates back to 1988. However, the 2012 Impala will finally retire its 3.5L and 3.9L engines in favor of GM’s much more modern 3.6L V6, and a six-speed automatic will replace the current impala’s archaic four-speed gearbox. A few exterior tweaks are also expected for 2012.
“There’s no doubt that the Impala is longer in the tooth than we would traditionally run a vehicle,” Rick Scheidt, Chevy’s vice president of marketing, admitted.
It remains to be seen, however, if the Impala’s 2012 update will be enough to keep up with vehicles like the 2013 Ford Taurus. As it stands, the Impala is one of the most heavily discounted vehicles in GM’s lineup with 75 percent of all sales going to fleets.
When the all-new Impala arrives in 2014, expect a more up-scale vehicle along the line of the Buick LaCrosse with a price tag intended to differentiate it from the Malibu.
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1.’Aging Impala…’ view
