Here's Bob Lutz on the new Saturn Aura and Chevy Impala
Although I’ve been traveling extensively this month, I have found time to get behind the wheel of some of our vehicles. I’ve driven two recently that I’m quite excited about, because they really illustrate the progress we’ve been making in mid-size cars.
The first is the Saturn Aura, which goes on sale later this summer. Simply put, I enjoyed it very much. It’s a very refined, very civilized car, beautifully put together, with impressive levels of quiet, and wonderful handling.
I believe it’s a major milestone in terms of both refinement and vehicle dynamics, not only for the Saturn brand but also for GM, in the category of mid-size front-wheel-drive cars. Got lots of “what is THAT” looks while driving it, and people were invariably surprised to find out it’s a Saturn. It’s absolutely outstanding and a great value as well.
I’ve also driven an astonishing Impala with the soon-to-be-released 3.9L Active Fuel Management system, which runs on three cylinders a surprising amount of the time.
It switches off half the cylinders whenever the engine isn’t fully solicited. And because of the unique characteristic of the Impala, which for its size is a relatively lightweight and aerodynamic car, it’s ideally suited for Active Fuel Management with the 3.9L V6. You can even go slightly uphill on three cylinders.
On the fuel economy label, there won’t be a lot of difference, because the fuel economy label cycle calls for idle, for example, and on idle you have to run all six, otherwise you get a rough idle. So you don’t save anything there. And you don’t save anything at full acceleration and most of the other requirements they roll into the cycle procedure. But the way most people drive, as you know, can be considerably different from the fuel economy label cycle.
As a result, people are going to be pleasantly surprised; instead of getting worse mileage than the fuel economy label, they’re more often than not going to see better mileage. When I picked up the car it had several thousand miles on it. And the average fuel economy on the trip computer was 29.8 mpg! (We haven’t released final EPA numbers on the 2007 Impala yet, but the average won’t be that high…) I was amazed by that, and I’m sure anyone else who gets into one will be, too. It’s just the kind of thing we need to address the fuel cost issues, and when it’s available, rest assured we’ll aggressively put the word out about it.
Source: GM Fastlane blog