Chevrolet Cruze Bumblebee Special

You knew it was coming: an official version of the Chevrolet Cruze Bumblebee. Set to make its first public appearance in a few weeks time at Frankfurt show, the Transformers film-inspired Cruze Bumblebee was co-developed with German tuning firm Irmscher. Even though the original Camaro-based Bumblebee features a yellow-and-black stripes treatment, Chevy's designers opted for a black paint job with bright-orange racing stripes and detailing.

Furthermore, Irmchser's tuners lowered the compact sedan's ride height by 30mm and added an orange colored rear diffuser that houses a pair of new exhaust tips. The beefy 18-inch alloy wheels finished in orange and shod in 225mm wide sport tyres complete the looks.

And while Chevy has no intention of enhancing the Cruze's range with a Bumblebee edition, Irmscher said that it will offer the package to individual customers.

Chevrolet Cruze price 2010

General Motors announced today the Chevrolet Cruze price for the UK market. The Chevrolet Cruze will be offered on the British market with either a 1.6-liter (113PS) or a 1.8-litre (141PS) petrol engines or 2.0-litres diesel with either a 125PS or 150PS. The petrol versions of the Chevrolet Cruze will also be offered with an automatic transmission.

The top of the range Chevrolet Cruze LT, powered by the 1.8 petrol or the 2.0-litre diesel engine, will come equipped with cruise control, climate control, an automatic anti-dazzle rear view mirror and an upgraded high-output stereo.

The Chevrolet Cruze price starts at £11,545 for the base model (1.6 S) and goes up to £15,195 for the 2.0 VCDi LT 150PS version.
Chevrolet Press Release:

Keeping an eye on money has never been more topical, and the good news for Chevrolet customers is that the all-new Cruze will be true to the brand’s traditional value-for-money ethics despite its premium styling and build quality.

The newcomer, which has the stance of a four-door coupe, will start from just £11,545 on-the-road,
and will arrive at UK Chevrolet retailers in July.

It will be offered with a choice of four engines – 1.6 (113PS) and 1.8-litre (141PS) petrols featuring variable valve timing for maximum performance and efficiency, plus two diesels, both 2.0-litres and with a choice of 125PS or 150PS power outputs. Automatic transmission will be offered on the petrol models.

The range will kick off with the 1.6 S, which enjoys a comprehensive list of standard equipment despite its value price tag. As well as remote Send through Y!M E-mail this
Chevrolet Cruze price Gallery: Chevrolet Cruze price
central locking, the model features follow-me-home lighting, a feature normally reserved for premium cars, a quality CD-radio system, electric front windows, a fully-adjustable driver’s seat and steering wheel, six airbags, ESC, upmarket soft-touch cabin materials, and premium blue-backlit dashboard dials. The 1.6S A/C model, at £11,995, also adds air conditioning.

The LS model, expected to be the best-seller in the range, starts at only £12,595 for the 1.6 manual variant and includes air conditioning as standard, plus other upmarket features such as
16-inch alloy wheels, a chrome edged radiator grille, front fog lights and reverse parking sensors.

Flagship of the range will be the LT, which comes in 1.8 petrol or 2.0-litre diesel guise, starting at £13,595. For that, you get a list of specification that’s truly befitting of a luxury car, including cruise control, climate control, an automatic anti-dazzle rear view mirror, an upgraded high-output stereo, electric rear windows, chrome detailing and 17-inch alloy wheels, plus the option of an integrated satellite navigation system.

The Cruze will also spearhead Chevrolet’s campaign in the
2009 World Touring Car Championship, which kicked off on March 8 in Curitiba, Brazil. The UK round of the WTCC takes place at Brands Hatch on July 19 – just in time to coincide with the car’s UK

Chevrolet Cruze Bumblebee

Created in collaboration with the tuner Irmscher, the special edition Chevrolet Cruze Bumblebee pays tribute to the Bumblebee Camaro, the automotive icon that played a staring role as an Autobot in the two Transformers movies with its rally stripes and flashy running gear and will make its world debut at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September.

No matter what angle you look at the Cruze Bumblebee from, the car’s design is stunning. The new orange on black compact Chevrolet benefits from being lowered by 30 mm increasing handling performance and simply aesthetically pleasing. The mirror covers, fog light housings and rear diffuser have also been finished in the same bright shade of orange as the silver lined racing stripes. Out back the exhaust is finished off with a pair of unique stainless steel tips. Continueing the orange theme are a set of 18 inch Irmscher designed Turbo Star wheels wearing a set of sticky 225 mm wide tires, specially prepared for this unique Cruze. The Cruze Bumblebee is based on the automatic 1.8 LT version of the new Chevy and will be built upon request.

2011 Chevrolet Cruze Prepares

(Enlarge photo)

GM's new global car, the Chevrolet Cruze, will be built in locations around the world. (Photo courtesy of General Motors Corporation)

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The Cruze will replace the Chevy Cobalt in the United States. (Photo courtesy of General Motors CorporationThe 2011 replacement for the Chevrolet Cobalt will be called the Chevrolet Cruze. Scheduled to be unveiled this October at the 2008 Paris Auto Show, the Cruze will go on sale in Europe in spring 2009.

The Chevrolet Cruze will be the first vehicle to use GM's revamped Delta 2 platform, an architecture that will be used on all GM small cars around the globe, including replacements for the Chevrolet HHR, Opel Zafira and its related siblings. The Cruze's bodywork will also carry a design vocabulary that will be incorporated into all vehicles across the globe that carry the Chevy bowtie.

At the Paris show, GM will unveil a five-passenger sedan that measures just under 181 inches overall, roughly the same size as the current Cobalt sedan. When the car goes into production in the U.S. in mid-2010, the Cruze will replace the Cobalt in Chevy's lineup and it'll be built at GM's plant in Lordstown, Ohio.

GM executives tell us, "The Cruze was developed by a global design and engineering team and will be built in multiple locations around the world." Apparently this includes a new assembly plant in Russia, as well as locations in Asia and Europe.

GM tells us that the cost considerations of global manufacture have led to the use of a torsion beam rear suspension for the Cruze. Although GM engineers claim that they have been able to optimize this design for both accurate handling and a comfortable ride, it's surprising that the Cruze doesn't feature independent rear suspension like the global Ford platform used for the Mazda 3.

In Europe, the Cruze will be offered with a choice of four-cylinder gas and diesel engines. For the U.S. market, GM intends to fit a turbocharged, direct-injection 1.4-liter that will deliver up to 40 mpg in highway driving.

What this means to you: As oil shock registers in the U.S., there's a stronger market than ever for an affordable small car, so the 2011 Chevrolet Cruze might be coming to the U.S. market at just the right time. — Paul Lienert, Correspondent

2011 Chevrolet Cruze

2011 Chevrolet Cruze

We write about a lot of advanced technologies here, including hybrids, diesels, electric cars, and even natural-gas vehicles. But the hard truth is that all of those added together will be only a small fraction of cars sold in the US, even 10 years from now.

Most of the green cars of tomorrow will be powered by gasoline, though they will use less of it than before. Within 18 months, both General Motors and Ford will offer us their best global compact contenders: GM will launch the 2011 Chevrolet Cruze next year, followed several months later by the completely redesigned 2012 Ford Focus.

We haven't driven a 2011 Chevrolet Cruze, exactly, but dozens of European and Asian auto writers have. Their consensus verdict: This is a very competitive car.

Compared to the aged and unimpressive 2009 Chevrolet Cobalt, which it replaces, the 2011 Cruze is far more stylish, has an infinitely nicer interior, and gets far better gas mileage from smaller and more advanced gasoline engines.

We'll get the choice of a standard 1.8-liter four-cylinder, producing about 140 horsepower, or a smaller but equally powerful 1.4-liter engine with both gasoline direct injection and turbocharging. Those two technologies are key in letting carmakers meet the aggressive CAFE standards announced in May by the Obama Administration without turning all new cars into golf carts.

The 1.4-liter turbo engine is said to return a combined fuel efficiency of 40 miles per gallon, though as always, we'll wait for the US Environmental Protection Agency to weigh in with its ratings.

Though we weren't driving that engine (far from it), we were able to experience the interior of a Chevrolet Cruze, which served as the test mule for the Chevrolet Volt powertrain we drove earlier this year.

The instrument panel was stylish, the controls were easily accessible, and back seat room was fine for 6-foot-tall males. We didn't think to check the trunk space, but it too gets good marks from reviewers overseas.

How crucial is the Cruze? British auto journalist Neil Winton sums it up in Brit-speak: "The Cruze is massively important to GM." We couldn't have said it better, and we're eagerly waiting to drive a US-spec model.

2011 Chevrolet Volt mule

2009 Meet Brian Deese, the 31-year-old in charge of breaking up GM

Many of us ABers being in our early- to mid-30s, we're less amazed that another of our ilk has risen to a decisive government position. We are, after all, a generation on the rise. The surprising part about Brian Deese's story is that he's been instrumental in shaping the Obama administration's moves to save General Motors, and this is his first official tour of duty in Washington. What qualifies a guy who hasn't even finished his Yale Law degree to steer President's automotive task force around? From what's been said about Mr. Deese, his quick ability to boil down the often competing economic and political aspects of any given issue.

Deese piped up in favor of Fiat's rescue of Chrysler, pointing out with a memo that a fire sale of the ailing automaker would send unforseen ripples out into the economy as a whole. Speaking out in such an influential manner is definitely unusual considering Deese doesn't appear to be an auto enthusiast or business propeller-head with his nose buried in studies and reports about the car industry. A childhood spent in the Boston suburb of Belmont, Massachusetts under the parentage of a college professor an an engineer, Deese did his undergraduate time at Middlebury College in Vermont before heading to Washington to work for Nancy Birdsall on international aid. A turn with former Clinton policy wonk Gene Sperling before the move to Yale, Hillary Clinton's bid for nomination brought Deese back to DC. With friends in Washington, Deese found himself hooked into the Obama team, and from there he's been running busily around our nation's capital.

If General Motors can successfully navigate Chapter 11, we'll all get to see just how well Brian Deese has done digesting the thorny chestnut that is saving our domestic auto industry.

Chevrolet Cruze

Click above for high-res gallery of the Chevy Cruze LT

The Chevrolet Cruze is three kinds of car: small, American and important. And with the state of General Motors, it isn't even the individual words that mean the most: it's whether The General can combine them into a reliable, fuel efficient and cost effective package. True, we don't get to drive these things while they're parked under the lights, but to have a seat in the Cruze is to imagine a GM that begs the question, "Where was all this before the meltdown?" The studio imagery we've seen so far translates nicely into real life, and the center console looks and feels substantial – in fact, it looks like it could be foreign – even if the silver mesh treatment in the show car was a bit much. The car has a compact yet full-bodied stance, and will probably look even better on the road in a color other than scarlet, and not under klieg lights. Spring of '09 will welcome this first Cruze variant to Europe, after which other regions will get it, as well as a probable hatchback and wagon. It will be powered by a 1.4-liter turbo four-cylinder that charts up to 140 hp and is said to return 40 mpg. Have a look at the high-res gallery of live shots below to get a better idea of what to expect when the Cruze goes on sale here in a couple years.

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