Could Chevrolet Revive The Chevelle As An RWD Car? Just Maybe

Over at Jalopnik, Patrick George discusses the recent trademark filing by General Motors for the Chevelle name. After a brief discussion regarding trademark procedure, George makes a logical conclusion; the Chevelle name may end up attached to something less than worthy, similar to how Dodge’s C-segment car ended up with the Dart moniker. But there is a potential ray of sunshine here for enthusiasts.

In January, TTAC commenter nadude (or as he’s known to everyone else, Mark Reuss, GM’s North American head) told an Australian news outlet that the Code 130R concept car “would be a great entry for us.” The Code 130R was a BMW 1-Series-esque concept car that used an FR layout and an efficient four-cylinder engine, not unlike the Scion FR-S.

As for how the car might make it into production

“I don’t know if they (Toyota) are making any money but it is a very attractive car…we would do something with the knowledge of Alpha and the background, but we wouldn’t take Alpha and try and shrink it.”

Currently, Alpha only has two vehicles based off of it; the Cadillac ATS and the next generation Chevrolet Camaro. GM will need to utilize this architecture further, as a way of amortizing its costs. Toyota is following a similar approach with the FR-S, spawning multiple variants to help absorb the costs of developing such a platform from the ground up.

While Reuss’ comments seem to suggest something different, it’s hard to make an armchair guess on how GM would get the Code 130R into production. At least GM has some kind of basis to start with, not to mention the will of some of its top level execs. As TTAC’s resident “voice of a generation”, I’ve already given the stamp of approval to the Code 130R. Unlike the SS, I could actually afford this, and the FR-S, as many of you know, doesn’t quite do it for me. So how about a compact, 4-cylinder Chevelle with rear-drive based off of some kind of Alpha platform? Sounds good to me.