Say Goodbye to Rear-drive Chevrolet Sedans - Again! - in 2017

Steph Willems
by Steph Willems

Unless your local police force harbors a crop of non-conformists, it’s easy to believe rear-drive Chevrolet sedans bowed out in the 1990s.

Of course, that’s not true. General Motor’s Australian Holden division saw fit to continue sending a limited number of rebadged Commodore sedans our way, long after the Impala and Caprice faded into the history books. Gussied up with a few tell-tale styling cues, the Commodore easily morphed into the performance-oriented Chevrolet SS and fleet-only Caprice PPV. Both models sell in limited numbers on this side of the Pacific, but not for long.

With Holden poised to pull the plug on Australian manufacturing later this year, the old-school Commodore has only months left to live. That means the exotic, badge-engineered American brothers will cease to exist after the 2017 model year.

Confirming a widely known reality, Alan Batey, head of GM North America, announced the end of the SS and Caprice PPV at the North American International Auto Show this week. His words held little hope for rear-drive sports sedan fans.

“Using the old adage, ‘win on Sunday, buy on Monday,’ we decided that in small numbers we’d introduce it the U.S. because we could, frankly, at a pretty low cost,” Batey said, according to The Detroit News. “I would say the vehicle has been really well-received. It’s small volumes, but it’s been really well-received.”

Small volume, yes, but the models saw continued support from a small but loyal following. As the spiritual and mechanical successor to defunct Pontiac G8, sales of the SS grew each year following its 2013 introduction, topping 3,000 units in 2016. It’s easy to see why. Just look around for another rear-drive, V8-powered American four-door with an available manual transmission.

Offered in police guise since 2011, the Commodore Caprice PPV offers the highest top speed (155 mph) of any traditional law enforcement vehicle. Still, it’s a rarity — just over a thousand units trickled into U.S. fleets last year.

With Holden rumored to turn out the lights on local production on November 3rd, 2017, a replacement seems very unlikely for Caprice, Batey said. The Commodore, however, will live on Down Under. For 2018, the model adopts the architecture of the Opel Insignia, which shares its bones with the next-generation Buick Regal.

[Image: General Motors]

Steph Willems
Steph Willems

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  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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