Current Generation Chevrolet Cruze And Malibu To Live On As Fleet Models? - GM Authority (blog)
It provides GM with a Fleet car that they can make a lot of money on as the tooling and development is paid off and the new car are protected for a while because they do not go to fleet sales and flood the market with cheap used models later. GM has a nice system with these older models and with regular changes as we see in the market it should continue. The new Bu us built on the old platform that was also shared with Opel and Buick. The Malibu did under perform but they it was far from a failure in a very competitive segment. GM could not keep on with the previous car a couple more years but were not ready with the new platform. They even rushed it early as it was to have been a year later to get be the new Ford as they knew they had to come out first or be lost in the crowd. That is also how the changes came so fast as they were in the works before the car came out. I can see the Cruze joining the Impala Limited — not sure if there’s the demand for the Malibu though. Do you want to build the old and new Cruze to the same production line and complicate your build. And maybe risk alienating some customers if the new Cruze is a runaway hit and production is constrained. GM tooled up the new Impala for propane/LNG — but then priced it too high for the market and wasted its investment. And then they did it on the new Impala — not. Source: gmauthority.com
