(first posted 6/19/2014) “The car you knew America could build”, GM’s patriotic TV ads proudly proclaimed upon the Malibu’s release in 1997. Perhaps a more transparent slogan would have been “Does it look enough like a Camry that you’ll actually buy one?”
They say confidence is quiet while insecurities are loud, and few things scream “I wish I was imported from Japan” louder than the Malibu’s amber rear turn signals. Every aspect of the car, from the inside to the outside – right down to the generic-looking plastic wheel covers, reeks of Toyota envy.
It doesn’t take much more than a glance to figure out that GM engineers used the 1992-1996 Camry as heavy inspiration when penning the design. Note the word “inspiration” rather than “benchmark,” because, as GM would eventually realize, the Camry’s mass-market appeal went far deeper than its inoffensive skin.
It’s easy for automotive writers to simply call this Malibu bland. But it’s the underlying cynicism behind the blandness that makes this car so interesting. GM’s share of the family sedan market had been plummeting for well over a decade at this point, with almost all of their lost sales going to superior products from Honda, Toyota, and Ford. The W-body didn’t save the day like Roger Smith had planned, with two generations of cheap and lackluster Luminas hardly winning any customers back. What was the ailing manufacturer to do?
The General’s solution was nothing short of desperate and in one word, lazy. By 1996, the archaic L-body Corsica had long passed its sell-by date. With the resulting gap in the line-up between the Lumina and the Cavalier too large to ignore, GM saw an opportunity. Although touted in advertisements as an “all-new” Malibu, Chevrolet’s finest product planners plopped this nondescript, mid-size shell onto the nearly-identical N-body platform – a platform which underpinned such pinnacles of engineering excellence as the Pontiac Grand Am – shoehorned the ancient, parts-bin 3100 V6 into the engine bay, and left the office for a round of golf.
The resulting creation wasn’t a bad car in the same way that the Citation and Vega were “bad cars”. It was just so thoroughly mediocre and phoned-in that it became painfully clear how much the parent company didn’t care. When new, the car had no particular redeeming qualities compared to just about anything else. Ride and handling were average. The Camry was more comfortable, while the Accord was sportier; both were built better and had vastly nicer interiors. Ford’s Taurus and Contour, while not without flaws, had more sophisticated suspensions and at least offered more modern optional engines. The Malibu was just, well… there. It simply existed, innocuously, perpetually overlooked by just about everyone. About the only thing it had going for it was its price, and even that was offset by practically non-existent resale values.
Growing up in Lansing, Michigan, home to two GM assembly plants–one of which built this very Malibu–along with no fewer than six Chevrolet retailers (in contrast to just one Toyota store), people actually bought these, making them a local best-seller throughout their run. The city’s streets continue to be littered with their N-body-derived mediocrity to this day. Outside of their hometown, however, these cars had one and only one natural habitat: airport rental lots.
Does anyone else remember those Enterprise commercials from about 1999, featuring an anonymous, tarp-covered sedan navigating a winding road with the announcer softly proclaiming “Enterprise, We’ll Pick You Up?” I do, and I especially remember the beige Malibu below that logo-covered tarp, cementing in my young mind the proper place these cars occupied in the social hierarchy that is the automotive world. If you rented a sedan up until about 2006, it was hard not to get one these as a “free upgrade” from a Kia after disembarking an airplane anywhere in the United States.
Truthfully, the biggest problem with this generation of Malibu was not how cheap it was, not how mediocre it was, and not even how bland it was. GM simply let it wither on the vine for so long that it eventually became an all-purpose fleet car; the 21st century equivalent to the Cutlass Ciera, but somehow less endearing. The generic sedan was so ridiculously popular with corporate fleets that GM continued building it exclusively for them in 2004 and 2005, badged as “Chevrolet Classic,” two years after the much-improved Epsilon Malibu had replaced it in public showrooms.
Much like the lifecycle of its Corsica predecessor, what had been an average, cheap car in 1997 had become thoroughly horrible by 2005. The car was improved (marginally) in its final years, with the modern and efficient Ecotec 4-cylinder replacing the boat-anchor pushrod V6, but at that point, it didn’t matter. The Honda Accord alone had passed through no fewer than three generations during the same time period, and it had arguably been a better car to begin with.
The story of the Malibu isn’t all doom and gloom, though. The truly-new 2004 Epsilon platform vastly stepped up the model’s game in the market, and the sharply-styled, well-suspended 2008 model was the first Malibu in modern times to even come close to the word ‘desirable’. The current 2014 model is still based upon that Epsilon platform, albeit updated heavily, and while its sales and the overall reputation still fall short of the Camry, the car is at least a contender in the mid-size segment today.
Still, for car-crazy Millennials who came of age when the N-bodies were being churned out, disconnecting “cheap wannabe” from the name “Malibu” is an ongoing struggle. Hopefully someday those amber rear turn signals will be nothing more than a distant childhood memory.
Related reading:
Oldsmobile Cutlass Calais International Series: I’ll Let Barry Thiel Explain It To You
1996 Chevrolet Beretta: A Dash Of Sportiness
I did extensive air travel in the late ’90s which meant I rented plenty of these. I’ll say, by rental-car standards, these were at least a considerable improvement over the dreary Corsica they replaced in that they were at least unobtrusively pleasant. GM finally got basic stuff like the center armrest right; most cars from this time had a vestigial rounded lump there barely long enough to support your elbow. The controls were easy to grasp, the trim not quite as plasticy as a Cavalier, Corsica, Lumina, or Cirrus/Breeze; the woodgrain livened things up. I recall them being adequately comfortable and quiet. The 3.1L V6 was smoother than the Iron Dukes that haunted GM small rental cars from a few years prior. The excellent A/C was always nice. The only thing that really spooked me were those wartlike growths on the A-pillars that served as air ducts.
I never noticed the Camry resemblance – it actually looks more like an overgrown Corolla to my eyes. And regarding Toyota envy, wow that round Chevy badge trying to hide the bowtie….
If you look closely that round Chevy badge has a symbol of a wave going around and over the bowtie. Waves, Malibu, beach? That’s my impression of where they were going with it.
As for the classic bowtie itself, I do not recognize any Chevy bowtie that isn’t BLUE. The gold-tone ones in present use come off weak to me.
I actually like this generation of Malibu, especially after the grill revision. I had a beige 02 with the sporty Camaro-style wheels. It just had that Iconic classic Chevy look to me, even if it wasnt without it’s problems – the turn signal would short out and stop working when it rained, sometimes the door chime would go off in sync with the blinker and I never was able to figure out what was causing it, and the air conditioner had a leaky freon tank, but still, I miss it more than any other car I’ve ever owned and wish I hadn’t smashed it up. I’m very satisfied with my curren ’14 Altima though, once you discover Bluetooth and Pandora it’s hard to go back.
How different might life be for the General today if they had built these cars, or the GM-10/W-body, with ANY sense of pride for GM’s rich history of excellence?
I know you that today you need a telescope to see back that far but people weren’t laughing at them 55 years ago when they updated their logo and added “Mark of Excellence” below.
My oldest son has a 2010 LTZ…the Generation Of Malibu GM Finally Got Right. The young man who once had no interest on cars…well, now that he has one that’s fun to drive (with the 3.6 V6) and is so well-appointed and looks sharp, even at ten years old…
…all of a sudden he takes an interest. Hmmm…
Thru the 2010s and now as the 2020s begin, seems that that GM – OVERALL – is doing much better.
For some reason I’m getting a mental image of Cookie Monster saying:
“Look, like Camry
Smell, like Camry
Taste… like Camry?”
“OM NOM N-“
*spits*
“IT NOT CAMRY!!!”
Nothing screams “rental car” louder than a white Malibu.
IIRC Consumer Guide called these “GM’s answer to the 1992 Honda Accord”. In the early ’00s.
Although I rented cars fairly frequently in the early-2000s, I never got one of these. My preferred discount account was with Hertz, which was owned by Ford Motor Company until 2005 (so the teaser headline mentioning “Hertz is not strictly applicable). Taurus, Sable, Contour, Mazda yes. But no Malibu’s.
Having worked for Hertz many (43) years ago, that was my first impression of this post…back then they had non-Fords in our location (mention that since the mix did seem to vary by location), back then they were predominantly Fords. I was a lowly transporter back then (the person who returns one-way rentals to their home location), and to this day, that’s my most frequent exposure to a variety of cars, since in the 46 years I’ve had a license I’ve only owned 5 different cars, though of course I’ve been in family/friends cars, still not the variety I saw on that job. One GM car stood out where I had to return a stolen car to our location from Albany (I was in S. Burlington back then) and wondered if it would last the trip…It was a B-Body Chevrolet Impala.
As for the subject to this post,I think I remember seeing it in a car show way back when (used to go to them pretty regularly in the 90’s and early 00’s..) and it seemed like a pretty generic car, but this was around the time right after Geo disappeared, which seemed to me to be GM’s line to rebrand Asian models as their own, so I wasn’t suprised at all that they would make one that tried to copy them. But to be fair to GM, I don’t think they ever really “got” small cars, since their forte had alway been larger cars…if European small cars had been popular at the time and GM had to deal with CAFE, I think we’d likely be saying how much GM is similar to (VW, Renault, Fiat, take your pick). Like any other business they try to figure out what will sell (and still meet government regulations) and what they come up with is a clone of what is successful for other manufacturers.
When I was interviewing for jobs after college around 2004 one place I interviewed with did a college interview day where they flew in several recent college grads on the same day. They provided everyone with a hotel room and rental car while we were there. The car I got was an Olds Alero, but when I arrived for my interview the next morning I noticed everyone else interviewing that day was driving a white Chevy Malibu. I must have been the last to arrive, and all the Malibus were already rented by the time I got to the rental counter (I do recall the guy saying that the Olds was a slight upgrade).
I’m always, well, bemused by American family cars of this era.
It’s like the business had been chugging along for so long, with an occasional backfire (Vega! Citation!), and management just wanted to keep the production lines churning out stuff. Any old stuff. Of course people would buy it, they always had. Marketing could stir up a demand, Sales could make the product attractive, and the salesmen could always be relied upon to talk the customer into buying. Like they always had. Are you up for a round of golf?
But times changed. Oh how they changed! Japanese cars had showed that quality was not to be equated with how much stuff was heaped in, on or around the car, or how well it was optioned-up, but how well it was assembled. And while the American companies were still coming to grips with this, the Japanese cars also upped the ante on technology (smoothness, sixteen-valve fours, independent rear ends, etc…). Buyers might not have understood the fancy tech stuff, but they could feel the difference in how the car drove.
The target moved, and kept moving, and all too often it came across as though American manufacturers seemed merely content to have a product, any product to sell in a market segment, without regard for achieving any particular level of excellence. Or even competitiveness. Bubble and squeak may tide you over for a day or two, but you wouldn’t want to be eating it week in, week out. Not when you’re given a choice.
From what I read, all too often GM cars in particular come across as the automotive equivalent of bubble and squeak: warmed-up leftovers.
I agree on all counts. Examples abound: the 2013 Dart at last fulfilled most of the promise of the Neon…and it didn’t matter, because buyers’ expectations had moved onward and upward quite a lot and no longer wanted a well-executed Neon.
And I had a thoroughly disagreeable Chrysler 200 as a rental car for a week in 2016. It felt very much like a direct successor to the Spirit/Acclaim: competent, adequate, and not a bare shred more; nothing about it any better than it minimally had to be. Better than the Spirit/Acclaim only by dint of 25-years-newer technology.
And the Cobalt might have fixed some of the Cavalier’s faults, but it didn’t really matter; people bought the Cavalier and people bought the Cobalt—there’s clearly and definitely a market for mediocre cars. Some people shop purely on price, or purely out of brand loyalty. Enough of them to have inspired Bob Lutz to opine that quality is overrated, and someone (probably also Lutz) to criticize the first-generation Cruze for being too good and express something between hope and directives for a “correction back to center” in the subsequent Cruze.
This criticism could just as easily be levelled at Ford, and even at Honda (7th-generation Accord…).
…is as perennial as it is pathetic. Dodge used it in 1989 (2nd movie at the link). Ford used it in 1986. And that’s just two instances; I’m sure there are many more.
This was the Valiant/Dart of 2002. A car from the parts bin that had overstayed its welcome in the marketplace. Funny how many of us long for those old Dodges and Plymouths, yet feel disgusted at this Malibu. Were your parents dismissive of those cars back in 1972? Sure the Malibu is a bore – but so were most Darts and Valiants, Novas, Mavericks and Hornets. Not every market needs a home run, even if the market is over-saturated with imported Japanese cars.
And this Malibu was better than those rental queens back then.
GM is a big place with dozens of vehicles for dozens of markets. This is a market placeholder car. It is a filler. It wasn’t a disaster. It didn’t cost billions and flopped. It is just a usable vehicle that’ll outlast the payments.
You can’t tell me that a Duster is inspired. It was little more than an updated coupe sitting on a car designed years before. That back panel rusted within a year or two. It was a Valiant new from the front doors back. Then Chrysler reheated them with special editions until 1976. Be real. You love them now because you loved them fifty years ago. I had three of them and wish I could have one now – but I’m not going to lie.
Sometimes a blank mediocre car is seen as more than it was. This could have been one of those cars. It probably won’t be, but still – beating up on it for not being more than it was tells us more about you, than it does about the Malibu.
Final word – Toyota isn’t a bench mark. Neither is Honda. The Malibu’s failure is not because it wasn’t one of those cars. GM could have built an exact replica of either of those cars, but Toyota and Honda buyers would still have shunned it because it wasn’t a Toyota or Honda. It would have cost GM more to build an exact replica, and it would have lost them a fortune. In 2002 American auto buyers had no respect for the cars their neighbors made even when they were good cars. That’s the real truth that hertz here.
Was the Duster inspired? yes, obviously; take a look at Chrysler’s sales figures for 2-door compacts before and after the Duster was introduced; they clearly illustrate that the Duster had a fair good lot of inspiration going for it.
The Dart and Valiant were not “market placeholder” or “filler” cars; they were the go-to compacts in the North American market of their day, perennial favourites of pretty much everyone—car mags as well as Consumer Reports and similar outfits. They were widely considered sturdy, dependable, and a wise, prudent buy, more comparable to an ’02 Corolla than an ’02 Malibu.
No ’60s-’70s cars came close to measuring up to the build quality standards of an ’02 car, and it doesn’t matter; car buyers were comparing ’02 cars and ’02 cars, not ’02 cars and ’73 models.
Benchmarks are benchmarks no matter who might sit there and go “Is not!”. There was no vast conspiracy to fool buyers during this generation of Malibu’s run; a lot of people actually, really preferred the Japanese brands for the solid reason that they were better-built, less troublesome cars that held their value better than comparable-size GM cars. Baseless appeals to national pride just can’t compensate for mediocre engineering, shortsighted cost-slashing (for example, by twisting parts suppliers’ nipples til they bleed), thoughtless design, and careless build. And it’s a fairly safe bet that the Americans building Hondas in Marysville, TN; Subarus in Lafayette, IN, and Toyotas in Blue Springs, MS and Georgetown, KY and Fremont, CA probably had neighbors, many of whom bought, drove, and respected those cars.
Agree! Dad bought a ‘75 Dart; the room inside was nearly Coronet-size yet the overall package was tidier and more efficient. It was a great little car that lasted quite a few years…the only more desirable domestic compact might have been a Nova.
A family member had a puke green Olds Cutlass variant of the Malibu. Bought for too much money from a second chance car lot. It lasted 220,000 very hard miles. The last few with a blown head gasket. It had the 3100 V6 If I remember.
I rented loads of these years back along with the Chrysler cloud cars and plenty of Taurus’s with the Vulcan 3 liter and 4 speed AOD. Drivetrain wise I liked the Malibu’s best, especially the 00-05’s with the 170 HP version of the 3100 and the 140 HP 2.2 Ecotec engines. The cloud cars always had the 2.4 and 4 speed Ultra drive and were no fun at all to drive and the Vulcan Taurus’s were sluggish and the transmission was a weird shifting lump. The Malibu’s also gave me the best MPG out of those cars. I also liked how big the trunks were in these, how much back seat space there was, the center console design, the big glove box, the knuckle warmers and the sound systems were decent. The Taurus was the ride/handling champ of the bunch but in all fairness all 3 of these were far better than any of there 70’s or 80’s forbearers and would out handle any rental 97-02 Camry which felt like it had Novocain steering, the softest springs possible and the slightest attempt at pulling around a corner always brought about tire squealing. This generation Camry sold well to the elderly set for a good reason mainly because it reminded them of there soft mushy riding old Buick!