The coolest Chevy of the late ’90s and early aughts is very likely the . Yes, the sleek profile of the GMT400 pickup is classic, but the Astro van . Another ubiquitous Chevy from that time period is the Cavalier, which was the kind of car that .
That is, until it was put to pasture in 2005, when its production and sale in the U.S. came to an end. The car stuck around on the , and now it’s getting a big update there. The Cavalier is still not returning to the U.S., sadly, but it is living the . Chevy is debuting the Cavalier as a new model with forced induction in Mexico, as the .
General Motors Mexico is hyping up the upcoming release of the Cavalier Turbo, which is set to be introduced at the end of this year. We won’t know the exact specs or trims for a while, and Chevrolet the information will be released closer to its release date. General Motors Mexico is to the sedan as the “all-new” Cavalier, but that’s not exactly true.
This car has existed on the Chinese market , where it was sold as the . So, this all-new Cavalier Turbo is simply a Chevy Monza, but it marks the first time the compact sedan has been available to drivers in North America.
The car has had asuccessfulrun in its native Chinese market, per , so it makes sense that Chevrolet would want to make it available in markets abroad. Now, Chevy has combined the well-known Cavalier nameplate with a newer,successfulmodel as it hopes to regain some of the market share for the compact sedan segment in Mexico.
The Cavalier Turbo is likely to be powered by the bigger of the engines that the Chinese Monza comes with, a 1.3-liter I3 that makes about 161 horsepower and will be mated to a six-speed automatic transmission, as GM Authority .
It’s possible, however, that Chevy could also go with the same drivetrain as a couple of other cars already sold in Mexico for the new Cavalier Turbo, according to . If that were the case, the Cavalier Turbo could share an engine with the and , which are both powered by a 1.2-liter I3 engine. This turbo triple-cylinder only makes about 128 horsepower, though, which is quite a bit less than the larger Monza motor, and would not be such a good value for Mexican drivers.
In either case, the Cavalier Turbo will be yet another example of a Chinese market Chevy finding its way to North America, like with the . That’s all fine and good, but what General Motors should really be doing is importing its massively popular GM-Wuling to Mexico, so it can get an early start dominating the Mexican EV market.