Baby Bow-tie

After a few years of offering mainly large vehicles like the Venture and Suburban and mainstream European brands like the Opel Astra and Vectra, GM Philippines finally has a small car to butt bumpers with the likes of the popular City and Vios: the Chevrolet Aveo.

If you’ve noticed, the small car segment displays quite a bit of styling chutzpah one would expect in the more expensive brackets like the 1.6 and 2.0-liter cars. The City’s crisp, efficient lines grow on you and tell you it’s well built. The Vios’ chunky, pugnacious body is instantly likeable. That’s quite an improvement from a generation or two ago, when boxes-on-wheels or stripped down 1.3-liter versions of cars like the Lancer and Corolla were all that were available.

The Aveo joins the fray with a 5-door hatchback design that’s suitably stylish, quite practical, and distinctive enough to merit a second glance from most jaded motorists. Designed by the house of Giogetto Giugaro, the rounded lines and slightly bulging wheel arches create the classic egg-shape, although the quarter windows in back add some flair. The front fascia reminds a bit of the minivan Venture, although the quarter moon grille and its chrome strip add a sense of fun to the look. It’s like the car’s sticking its tongue out in jest.

The clear lens headlamps, fog lamps, and tail lamps look expensive (but not exactly original in this day and age anymore), and the wrap-around turn signal lamps on the bumper also serve to accent the front. In profile, the gently tapered greenhouse and softly molded doors and fenders yield a smooth, clean shape that avoids the potential slab-sided look of short-wheelbase, high roof hatchbacks. Painted in the test unit’s "Sports Blue", the Aveo constantly reminded me of an Easter egg; fun, but not unconventionally so like the love-it-or-hate-it Toyota Echo. The wheels are cost-cutters, though. They’re just ordinary steel rims with covers.

Inside, it’s a healthy mix of convention and Euro-flair. Yes, I said Euro, but we’ll get to that in a while. Circles seem to be the dominant motif here, as the door pull handle, gauges, A/C vents, and even the fabric door panels are either circular or almost. The instrument gauges are housed in two raised, circular pods covered by a half-circle binnacle that perfectly shields them from sun glare. Even the shifter knob is shaped like an oversized golf ball. Fit and finish is quite good, and the plastics have a nice grain that doesn’t say "cheap" just because you didn’t buy a more expensive car. The center section of the dash also has those nice, pseudo-perforated strips on the side. They add nothing to functionality but are there just to look good. Ditto the faux carbon-fiber panels on the doors. There’s an eminently usable ticket holder too, so non-E Pass users (or those who drive the North Luzon Expressway) will never lose those germ-infested toll cards again.

Functionally, you get almost all the comfort and convenience features you’d expect these days. Power windows, power steering, height-adjustable seat, rheostat for the gauges, a decent stereo with an in-dash CD player, rear window wiper and demister, heater, and power mirror. That’s singular, mind you, because the driver’s side mirror is adjusted via a little stalk on the A-pillar while the passenger-side gets the electric motor. I don’t know whether to describe this as "retro" or "weird". You decide. Definitely quirky is the driving position. With the fixed position steering wheel, petite drivers will have to raise the seat quite a bit to grip the wheel comfortably, thus getting them a position not unlike a minivan’s. This is probably okay for most people, but not okay for those who like to drive with the steering wheel near the lap — like me.

Start ’er up and the single overhead cam, 1.5-liter engine gets going with a smooth purr and minimal vibration and noise getting through the firewall. Driving it through Manila and a nearby province for a total of around 620 kilometers in 4 days, I was constantly reminded of another GM brand car: the Opel Astra. The Aveo is actually a rebadged Daewoo, which might turn off some people because of that brand’s spotty record, but it looks like GM standards of engineering and fit and finish made it into this car. Or maybe Daewoo has really improved itself.

The Aveo may look like a car best suited to the city, but just the opposite is true. The engine’s flywheel is quite heavy, and so it takes its time spooling up the rev range to deliver those claimed 83 PS and 128 Newton-meters of torque. Crawling through traffic in first gear is awkward since the flywheel makes the drivetrain jerk and lurch constantly; you’ll be declutching a lot in this car. The steering effort is also on the heavy side, so darting in and out of slow moving traffic in concert with that laid-back engine profile takes more effort and planning than it would in, say, a Vios.

The upside is that in moderate to high speed cruising, the car is as stable as any car mounted on 60-series, 14-inch rubber can get. The motor lacks bottom-end grunt and top-end refinement, but contentedly burbles along at 120 kph at around 3,500 rpm in 5th. The suspension is also tuned for this kind of driving. The front McPherson struts and rear torsion beam are tuned for comfort, and on badly paved roads, they give the sensation of driving a longer-wheelbase car with minimal bouncing and crashing. The slightly heavy steering pays off on long straights as well. Turn-in response is stable and unhurried while straight-line tracking is excellent.

Two things I’d immediately recommend for Aveo buyers would be to change the wheels and tires right away. The Kumhos roll over and play dead too early, screeching in moderate to hard braking, aquaplaning all too easily on wet roads. Those steel rims add to unsprung weight and consequently poor cornering. The rear drum brakes also fade early when wet or under frequent, hard braking.

Besides the engine and highway stability, some other Astra-ish touches include the little pod on the center of the dash for the clock and some idiot lights (although the Astra’s is, of course, more comprehensive), and the rubbery gearshift. With long throws and a wide gate, the shifter feels like it was taken from a big parts bin that serves other GM cars as well. There’s also a collar you have to pull up to engage Reverse, which isn’t to the right and back as in most cars, but left and forward instead like a weird first gear. A 4-speed automatic Aveo with Adaptive Shift Control Logic programming is P40,0000 more than the manual’s updated P545,000 retail price.

A driver’s car the Aveo is not. It doesn’t like to be hurried. What it does best is deliver long hours of comfortable cruising for 4 (okay, 5 if you squeeze) without the usual buzzing and crashing from the high-strung engines and stiffer suspensions that come with your average Japanese small car. Ingress and egress is quite good as the seats are high and headroom is generous. Legroom is also good in front and in back, and about the only thing you’ll have to consider with the hatchback design is the minimal room for luggage left behind the rear bench. The rear seatback split folds 60:40 though, so two people out on a long road trip shouldn’t have a problem with space. There’s even a rear utility tray on the front passenger seatback.

In short, you get a nicely equipped car that will do most of the things you’d expect a car of its size and price to do. Buyers looking for a practical, entry-level car to drive for long hauls would do well to try out this newest baby Chevy from GM Philippines.