Road Test: 2009 Chevrolet Cobalt SS Coupe

Story and photos by John LeBlanc With the performance market quickly turning to small, fun and frugal, Chevrolet – a brand historically marketed as General Motors' "cheap speed" division – should be sitting on the automotive throne right now. Instead, Chevrolet's been preoccupied with pickups, crossovers, SUVs and resurrecting its retro Camaro muscle car; a vehicle that's about as in-touch with today's market as classic rock, tie-dyed shirts and burning draft cards. Its last attempt at a sporty small car – the luke-warm 173 hp front-drive Cobalt SS, and the slightly-less-tepid 205 hp SS Supercharged version – seemed half-hearted attempts at best. Unrefined, uncompetitive – and in the end, unpopular – those first Cobalt SSs were quietly put on hiatus last year. But for 2008, Chevrolet is resurrecting a Cobalt coupe with an SS badge on its rump, with more power under the hood, a chassis that's been shipped off to a European finishing school, and a $24,995 starting price that's equal to Dodge's new Caliber SRT4, but thousands less than more established import rivals. Still: Is this Cobalt SS, part deux, enough to pry the owners of Honda Civic Si's, Mazdaspeed3s or Volkswagen GTIs out of their rides? Let's get to the go-fast goodies first. The Cobalt's new 260 hp 2.0-litre turbochaged and intercooled four-banger with direct-injection is one of the General's most sophisticated small engines. It produces 260 lb.-ft. of torque. It was first seen under the hood of the Pontiac Solstice GXP/Saturn Sky Red Line roadsters and the wagon version of the Cobalt: the HHR SS. (GM is also making the SS package available on the Cobalt four-door sedan later this year. But note: In the sea of GM brands, the supposedly sportier Pontiac G5 and Saturn Astra compacts do not have Cobalt SS counterparts.) The five-speed manual in the last Cobalt SS was a notchy, awkward box. But this new short-throw version is much cleaner in its cog swapping. And it has a new party trick that's called "no-lift" shift, which allows the driver to upshift without lifting off the gas. Consider no-lift like Viagra for your car. When accelerating hard, no-lift dials back the engine's timing. The mixture in the cylinder burns longer, creating more energy so the turbo doesn't lose boost. Using no-lift, the SS can scoot from naught to 100 km/h in 6 seconds. That's 1.5 quicker than the 2007 supercharged Cobalt SS, but equal to the quickest of the above-mentioned imports, the SRT4 and the $6K-more-expensive Mazdaspeed3. When not down at the local drag strip, Chevrolet's sporty compact is rated at 9.3 L/100 km in the city, 6.6 on the highway. So the new Cobalt SS is fast in a straight line. "Yeah, typical one-dimensional-American-muscle-car," some devoted import buyers may grumble. "But can it go around corners without loosening my tooth fillings?" The definitive answer is surprisingly, "Yup." Whereas the last sporty Cobalt's rock-hard suspension crashed and banged over any surface less smooth than a billiard table, Chevrolet had the chassis engineers at Opel's tuning shop give the new SS a better blend between a comfortable ride and sporty handling. Despite roll stiffness being up a whopping 30 per cent at the front end of the car and steamroller 40-aspect 18-inch rubber, the Cobalt SSs FE5 sport suspension is downright subtle – dare we say European – while still providing more grip than what's required for public on-ramps (0.9 g, according to Chevrolet.) There's little lost between what's going on down at pavement level and the driver in regards to steering feel. And the car always feels in control, not sloppy like a lot of GM sporty suspension setups (Pontiac G6 GT, come on down!) Hot tip: If Chevy wants to truly steal sales in the red-hot compact class, make the SS suspension setup available as a stand-alone option on all Cobalt models. My Cobalt SS also had the $645 limited-slip front differential. It helps eliminate the inevitable toque steer with this much power when pressing on. Less helpful is the test car's obnoxious $245 "high wing rear spoiler." Not only does it attract airplanes as a landing strip, the wing's horizontal panel shimmies and shakes at any speed higher than 100 km/h. And rear vision is limited to cars that are riding your bumper. Not good. It's also hard to ignore that, save for the excellent, high-bolstered sports seats, leathered steering wheel and A-pillar turbo boost gauge, the SS's interior is basically no different than any other model: a drab design swathed in rough-hewn plastics. Nicer than the Dodge, but still leagues below a GTI. In the end, until the Camaro shows up next year, the Cobalt SS is "it" when it comes to Chevy backing up its "cheap speed" brand ethos. Still, if you don't mind its low-rent interior and blasé styling, the 2008 Cobalt SS's combination of performance, on-the-road composure, and value pricing at least puts it on the sports compact short-list for the first time since a man named Nixon was in the White House. 2008 Chevrolet Cobalt SS Coupe PRICE: base/as tested $24,995/$27,275 ENGINE: 2.0 L turbo four-cylinder POWER/TORQUE: 260 hp/260 lb.-ft. FUEL CONSUMPTION: city 9.3, hwy. 6.6 L/100 km COMPETITION: Dodge Caliber SRT4, Honda Civic Coupe Si, Mazdaspeed3, Volkswagen GTI WHAT'S BEST: Performance/price; no-lift shift; Euro-tuned ride and handling WHAT'S WORST: Ubiquitous looks; no-frills interior; gratuitous rear wing WHAT'S INTERESTING: GM says the Cobalt SS's Nurburgring-tuned FE5 Sport suspension delivers 0.9 g grip

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