Better get that interior fixed.

yeah really, the interior will be the centerpiece of an upmarket impala. has to be better than the 300.

Rear wheel drive? Check
V8 power? Check
Relatively affordable? Check

This is what Chevrolet has been missing for a long time. Big, comfortable, V8 powered all-American sedan. Not a front wheel drive Japanese car wannabe, but an honest to God affordable rear wheel drive V8 sedan.

So, basically, a real competitor for the Magnum. Sounds like a good plan. Besides, they’ll get a lot of law-enforcement sales because of the RWD.

I think they’ll be able to pull it off, if the spy shots of the upcoming Malibu and Camaro are any indication. Could look good. They MUST make it aggressive and not staid like their existing sedans. Toyota and Honda can continue making incredibly reliable appliances, but in order to compete, GM/Ford both need to make their products more exciting.

Is moving upmarket wise? I mean, it’ll mean better competition with the imports, but there is a market for basic transportation that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. I really like the new Impala because even though it is conservative, it still looks nice and is more within reach than its competitors.

How about keeping the Impala where it is and giving Saturn a more upscale version?

sounds like a winner to me… Go GM..

i dont think this would fit in with saturns game, no matter how much they badge engineered it. if anything its a 300/charger competitor over a magnum… unless theres an (unlikely) impala wagon.

Good catch, A4. I actually meant Charger, not Magnum. It’s monday, cut me some slack! ha ha

I realize this is GM and not Ford, but I think a bold move would be to move the front-drive Malibu upmarket and make the rear-drive Impala the more affordable of the two.

It just seems as though anything with rwd is automatically moved upmarket, despite the fact that GM has spent the last fifteen or so years trying to convince everyone that fwd is, in fact, better than rwd. Now that GM can once again produce rwd vehicles they’re doing a complete 180 on this strategy. “Oh, just kidding, we knew rear-wheel was better all along. Now that we have some rear-wheel cars you have to pay a premium for them.”

The formula for the car sounds great, but the marketing is going to be what makes or breaks this car. Ultimately, I don’t think this thing should even hit the market if it’s going to be a Chevrolet posing as a Cadillac.

Personally, I think they should price the rwd and the fwd models as close together as possible, and see what the market decides.

/no

Impala is going bigger and slightly more upmarket. It will still be an affordable Chevy. Malibu will get a bit bigger but not a whole lot since it is on the older Epsilon architecture. So there will be a larger difference in size from today.

I would bet the RWD Impala would start around $25,000 ( +$3000 from today) with the Malibu around $18,000 (about where it is today)

nowei, the FWD/RWD pricing would be an excellent experiment to see the difference, but i think it would work better with the same styling as a control, because that could easily sway a buyer. Its too bad nobody has the capital to do something like that. Or the balls (toyota).

What argument did GM originally use to say that FWD was better?
In all honesty, which system is superior? From what I understand, FWD is plagued by torque-steer (which I’ve confirmed in my own car.) But, it can get out of a snowbank without much of a problem. I assume this is because most of the weight is sitting right smack on top of the drive wheels. RWD seems better when dealing with enormous amounts of power and is better for weight-ratio. Am I right? Sounds like both systems have equal positives and negatives, so is just the normal ebb and flow of consumer opinion?

People who can’t drive a RWD-based vehicle out of a snow bank don’t know how to drive. Period. FWD is just incredibly stupid both in engineering terms as well as practically speaking. AWD is still better than both though, but it’s considerably more complex to implement so you won’t be able to get that option in every single car.

FWD came about for GM on volume cars in about 1980. It allowed lower weight, more efficient interior packaging and smaller vehicles.

Once a RWD car is in a snow bank, it is very difficult to get out. With FWD there is more weight over the driving wheels and therefore a higher coefficient of friction. Also it easier to pull out a vehicle than to push it out frome the rear.

nowei that’s an interesting idea but A4 is right, unfortunately.

RWD Imapala moved slightly upmarket sounds good to me. Keep the Malibu pretty much the way it is. You’ll find that the soccer moms who don’t care what wheels the power comes from will mostly still buy the Malibu, but also that by making the Impala RWD, that’s right in the entry-level Chrysler 300 area, which is right where they need to be. This is a good idea. People who know cars will pay that little extra to get RWD.

What wheel drive? I’m sure this is often discussed, but this is my take:
AWD is superior pretty much all the time. But RWD is better than FWD as well.
FWD, in my understanding, came about because it was a. cheaper, b. easier to produce, and c. more difficult to screw up in.
RWD will oversteer, and most people will react by braking, which causes it to spin. Hitting the gas when the back comes loose is (believe it or not) quite contradictory to most everyday drivers.
FWD will understeer, you hit the brakes, everything is ok, you stop (or you keep understeering and go straight off a cliff, but anyway).
So according to the safety people, FWD is safer for everyday drivers. Enthusiasts and all manner of “people who drive in a spirited manner” prefer oversteer to understeer anyday because at least that will keep you pointed in the right direction. This is why I’d prefer an entry level BMW 316i over a new Acura TL Type S. If only they would make it AWD…

If you know what you’re doing, RWD is still better, even in the snow, like 1c3d0g said. And come on, who gets “stuck in snowbanks?”

I sure hope this means we’re gonna see another big impala possible collector car like the 94-96 and older impalas. The 99-up impalas look like crap. Well they don’t really look like crap but they sure are ugly and they should never even be considered collector cars.

DavidS: that is the most well thought-out, worthy comment I’ve seen on this site yet! That’s exactly how it is, you explained it perfectly.

Does “Upmarket” mean “not the rental car of the year”?

The Malibu is the Rental lot queen of America. The Impala moving upmarket means it will be competing with the Accord and Camry.