#Chevrolet

Just as quickly as small diesel engines in vehicles in North America saw a resurgence, they appear to be going away. Earlier this week we shared the tragic news that Ford wouldn’t be putting the diesel engine in the Transit Connect. Today we’re sad to report that the Chevrolet Equinox diesel is also going away.

The Car Connection reports that the Equinox is going away for the 2020 model year. Chevrolet told them that the canceling of the oil burner is a result of “slow demand.” While we might all think that we want small diesel engines in our cars and crossovers, we’re not actually shelling out the money to buy them. At least not in the quantities required to make them profitable for the automakers.

Our always (sometimes) reliable Ace of Base meter loves a good econocar, one that deigns to a low monthly payment but still doles out features like a benevolent reverend doles out candy at Easter. The diminutive Sonic has never been featured in this series, primarily due to the presence of its little brother — the Chevy Spark.

American auto-buyers seem to have shunned the Sonic as well, with the current model set to sail off into the twilight after this model year. Compared to the popular and evergreen Hyundai Accent sedan, can it secure an Ace of Base parting gift?

In case you haven’t noticed, America’s truck wars are in full swing. Now, more than ever, the Detroit Three are gleefully beating each other over the head with a proverbial chair printed with towing and torque figures. Prodigious power? Sure. Enormous cabins? Yewbetcha. Grilles to the moon? They got ya covered, buddy.

Hot on the heels of a half-ton rethink, the crew at Chevrolet turned their attention to the Heavy Duty series of pickups. In a perpetual race with their competition, and the introduction of new engines and no fewer than fifteen camera views, you know this thing is going to haul trailers like a large poutine from Frank’s Diner turns your author’s bloodstream into artery putty.

A report surfaced today from Muscle Cars and Trucks, suggesting that the Camaro will not live on to see a seventh generation. Having been sold continuously for the last 10 years, the iconic pony car is not planned to transition to the new A2XX platform. Current product plans forecast production to 2023, but nothing further.

The current sixth-generation Camaro is built on the Alpha platform that was utilized by the outgoing ATC and CTS. The new CT4 and CT5 models are built on an updated version of that platform, dubbed A2XX. While all 3 models will be built alongside each other at the Lansing Grand River Assembly Plant, the Camaro is not slated to receive a redesign to transition onto the newer chassis.

As I’ve been reviewing cars for this venerable publication for nearly three years, I’ve noticed how easy it is to become jaded about new cars. While I’m not like some journalists, getting handed keys to six figure exotics every week, I am rather lucky to experience cars on a regular basis that frequently cost more than I’d likely ever spend with my own money.

I’m reminded of this most often when something unusual graces my driveway, and a neighbor strikes up a conversation — or when I’m walking back to the car from the supermarket and someone is waiting to ask about the car. It doesn’t happen often — but this new 2019 Chevrolet Blazer RS seemingly compels conversation.

Plan your trips accordingly.

If we were to have told you a few short years ago that The General would soon be producing mass copies of a rear-drive vehicle powered by a turbocharged straight six diesel, you’d have had us committed to the nearest madhouse. After all, such a bumf reads like sport European sedan from the eighties, when cars were cars and most passengers were terrified.

But it isn’t a sports sedan, nor even a performance coupe. Getting inline at GM these days means moving into a Silverado half-ton pickup truck, the latest entrant from the Detroit Three in a quickly escalating war of diesel supremacy in trucks not competing in the Dreadnought-class. These are the volume trucks, folks, and all of the diesel powertrains — Ford, Chevy, and Ram — displace an identical 3.0L from their six cylinders.

Differences abound between the three, causing your friendly neighborhood gearhead’s mind to temporarily out of control, even more so than it does after his third ration of Lamb’s Rum. Let’s dive in and decipher it all.

Everybody who obsesses over automobiles knows that the redesigned Chevrolet Silverado is a hideous monstrosity with a disgustingly small four-cylinder engine as its base powerplant. At least that’s the gist among automotive journalists. While yours truly doesn’t understand how anyone could claim that GMC’s new Sierra boasts the more-attractive mug, both ended up with mildly disappointing interiors and a ride that’s not quite on par with their domestic rivals — especially the Silverado.

Shade has been thrown and the public has responded by buying fewer full-size trucks from Chevy, forcing it to give up its second place sales ranking to Ram. However, General Motors seems to think the issue has been overblown and only represents a temporary setback.

The General made more than two million Chevrolet Vegas during the car’s 1971-1977 run, and the numbers climb much higher if you include the Vega-derived Chevy Monza and its siblings. The Vega’s many quality problems and rapid cheap-subcompact depreciation led to nearly all of these cars disappearing from American roads well before the dawn of the 1990s, but I still find the occasional example during my junkyard travels. Here’s an early Vega two-door hatch that seemed to be in pretty good shape before it hit a large animal on an Arizona road a couple of years back.

Some of the most interesting examples of GM badge engineering during the last few decades involved the Isuzu brand; first, the Chevrolet LUV pickup ( Isuzu Faster) arrived during the late 1970s, followed by the Chevrolet/Geo Spectrum ( Isuzu Gemini) and Geo Storm (Isuzu Impulse), and finally the Trailblazer-based Isuzu Ascender. Mixed in there was the Isuzu-ized second-gen Chevy S-10, also known as the Hombre.

You won’t find many Hombres in your local wrecking yard, but I kept my eyes open for one until this ’96 showed up in Denver.

After our most recent Rare Rides post, your author perused The Big List of BDB Ideas and discovered a suggestion commenter Sgeffe made many moons ago. He suggested the most basic coupe A-bodies on offer in 1979. Feeling cheap? Let’s get weird.

Upon reserving a car in the Full-size Sedan class from the people at Enterprise, your author’s mind filled with visions of Passat and Fusion, or something similar. But over on the TTAC Slack channel, Adam Tonge assured me, “They won’t have a full-size sedan for you.”

Turns out he was right. Of the three “upgrade” options presented, none was a sedan. So I picked the largest one, and the only option with a V8: this dark blue 2019 Tahoe, in LT trim.

The other two options presented were a high-trim Dodge Journey in Ticket Me Red and a presumably basic Grand Caravan in Appliance White. The Tahoe seemed like the best option, though after the completion of over 800 miles, perhaps the lesser of three evils might’ve been a more apt description. Let’s go back in time a few days… or maybe a couple of decades. It’s hard to tell.

Chevrolet dusted off another historic nameplate on Wednesday, resurrecting the Trailblazer name after a decade-long (U.S.) absence and applying it to a tweener crossover bound for the narrow ground between the subcompact Trax and compact Equinox. V8 and inline-six motivation will not be part of this package.

While GM’s reuse of the Trailblazer name isn’t likely to anger as many diehard Bowtie fans as the reborn 2019 Blazer, the emergence of yet another Chevy-badged crossover makes one wonder about just how well-stocked a lineup can be.

Hot on the heels of its Chinese-market debut in Shanghai last month, General Motors has foisted a reborn Trailblazer on North America. Take our word for it — GMT360 afficionado Chris Tonn couldn’t be happier.

The original TrailBlazer (note the uppercase “B”) bowed out of the American market after 2009, though a Holden-badged version built on the Chevy Colorado platform appeared overseas in 2012. The unrelated Chinese model is what you see here, riding atop a new architecture that underpins the Buick Encore GX you saw earlier today.

That’s right, the 2021 Trailblazer is a small crossover that slots between the subcompact Trax and compact Equinox. GM decided upsetting Blazer purists wasn’t enough.

The pickup market certainly is cutthroat. Fortunately, that fierce competition seems to work out rather well for the consumer. Less than a year after introducing the current-generation Chevrolet Silverado, General Motors is already making adjustments in a bid to boost its appeal with a broader array of customers — a necessary gambit, considering Ford’s F-150 is still the pickup sales king and Ram’s well-praised 1500 has displaced the Silverado as the runner-up.

For 2020, Chevy’s Silverado gets much of the new tech that was previously introduced for HD models, plus wider availability of the desirable 6.2-liter V8. As a result, the Silverado will offer customers the most towing capability of any light-duty pickup, at 13,400 pounds.

General Motors’ new Flint-built, light-duty 3.0-liter inline-six turbo-diesel won’t be a late-year addition to the company’s full-size pickup lineup, after all.

Apparently, the engine’s emissions certification process was not the speedy affair GM had hoped for. Customers will now have to wait for the 2020 model year before getting their hands on the 460 lb-ft oil burner.