The 2009 Chevy Impala is a wonderful car. No, that’s not quite right.
The 2009 Chevy Impala is an woeful car. No, not right either.
The 2009 Chevy Impala is a car. That’s about right.
The fact that this is really the only accurate statement that can be made in relation to the Chevy is something of a disappointment to me. As a just-off-the-plane English guy dipping a toe into the US motoring world, it’s true that Avis rent-a-car is not perhaps the ideal place to get a spike of automotive adrenalin. However, it is a useful place to get a realistic view of Everyman’s motoring life. The stuff you can rent at Avis is the stuff the majority of the population is driving on the roads.
And this is where the disappointments began for me. Before I walked over to bay F41 at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, the name Impala was not without glamour for me. It conjured up images of football field-sized hoods, Nimitz-sized rear-decks, some pretty unrestrained fin-work and those triple-rear lights. Yup, I was in 1958. And in 1964. And even in 1970 (although the fins were in remission by then...)
The Impala was always laughably remote in character from its furry African namesake (graceful leaping and prancing, partnered with startling acceleration not being a key part of its standard repertoire), but that didn’t matter. The Chevys in my mind had a low-slung, graceful menace about them. You wouldn’t so much drive an Impala as pilot it smoothly through shoals of lesser cars. You could cruise in a Impala. You could arrive in an Impala. You could chop an Impala, install hydraulics where normal suspension should go and scrape the rear fender along the ground whilst pointing the headlights at the streetlights. You would always look good.
When I arrived at bay F41 this mental bubble was pricked. For a start, the arse (as we’d say in England) was gone. I mean, the trunk was still intimidatingly large compared to a European car. I felt momentarily ashamed that my suitcases were barely noticeable once inside. But the Impala was no longer a car that would impress Fergie with it’s posterior. All the Impalas in my mental records had the kind of rear-deck that a Sunseeker yacht would be pleased to flaunt at St Tropez. The addition of a couple of swim-suit clad girls, lounging on your trunk-lid seemed to be what the acreage of metal was designed for. No longer.
Apart from it’s sadly docked rear, the Chevy had the right number or doors and didn’t look actively offensive in the way that Crown Victorias or Ssang-Yong Mussos do. Cup-holder? Check. Big comfy seats? Check. Pointless nod to technological advancement? Check (those silly automatic headlights). It was all a bit plain-Jane, particularly in boring white with hearing-aid beige interior, but not disconcerting. The disconcerting stuff happens when you drive the car, I discovered.
Picture an elderly golden labrador. Picture this labrador asleep in the late afternoon in a warm room after a long walk and some food. Now imagine giving this happy, snoozing dog a gentle prod with the end of your finger. What happens? Nothing. It might roll-over, or snore with renewed volume, but the level of activity will not change. In imagining this, you have also successfully imagined what happens when you gently increase the pressure on an Impala’s accelerator pedal. Nothing. Perhaps a little more noise.
Now go back to the old, sleeping dog and, instead of a gentle prod, give him a meaningful kick in the mens department. What happens? Disconcerting things happen. The dog will lurch to his feet, probably making quite a bit of noise. He may look wildy around while doing so and will then most likely disappear off in a fairly random direction banging into the furniture as he goes.
This is also what happens when you increase the pressure on the Impala’s accelerator pedal to the point where the car’s electronic brain is forced to admit that it can no longer go on pretending that you’re not there. By way of teaching you a lesson it will then change down and give the engine some beans. You will almost immediately regret your actions as you wrestle the lurching, bewildered old thing back on track and will go back to cruising sedately. This conveniently will allow the Impala to remain almost permanently in high gear at 60 mph, thus presenting reasonable fuel economy figures.
You can get an Impala to go around corners. It will accelerate (eventually) and stop (without much body control). You can heat it up and cool it down to the required temperature quite easily. People in the back will be comfortable on long journeys. But that’s about as far as it goes.
Many of you will no doubt point out that at no stage of it’s development has any Impala pretended to be a Lotus Elise. You’d of course be right. My complaint is merely this. If your car looks the way a 1958 Chevy Impala looks it doesn’t matter that the dynamic experience is awful. But when you mate an iconic name with a body that has the visual tension of a suitcase and an anaesthetized driving experience you have problem. Mustangs, Camaros and Challengers are alive and well, but for me, right now, the Impala is catatonic.
No.7
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