Here’s a rather disposable car that barely left a memory, for good reason. It escaped the ‘deadly sin’ label when it appeared in our ‘The Truth Hertz’ post years ago. And while the product itself didn’t earn that title then, there were definitely sinful acts during its corporate gestation. In this case: GM’s sinful incapacity towards real commitment. That among others, but let’s explore this one briefly for the time being.
If Japanese companies at times suffered of ‘trying too hard’ (Mazda’s rotary?), American management was only too quick to jump ship when the next shiny profitable-object appeared. Here was Chevrolet, mauled by the Taurus-Camry-Accord triumvirate, admitting it knew nil about the market, and capitulating completely by copying a 1992 Camry. And sort of crudely delivering one 5 years later. To further the injury -as one of our previous COALs tells- the Malibu project received just enough support to get up in the ring against the Camry, though without enough funding to be a true contender. The perfect non-committed committal GM had developed a habit for.
Bill Mitchell, where were you? Buried, luckily. Chuck Jordan despised the thing, Larry Shinoda described it as a ‘melted Camry with karate chops applied on the headlights.’ Internally the car had been customer-clinicked to death (as told by Jordan), and felt like it. Management had definitely crunched those clinic numbers and given the public a product somewhat more competitive than a Corsica. Not that the car itself was bad, but it was clear those clinic metrics were the project’s sole goals: from proportions, layout, ergonomics, to interior volume and performance. Everything on the Malibu felt as if checking boxes.
All done with lesser underpinnings of course, which goes to the heart of the matter on that lack of commitment: I’ll invest on you a bit to play Camry-pretense, but it’s just a flirt you know? Let’s see how it goes before we hook up for good!
R & T’s review is filled with faint praise, and indeed, the Malibu’s package was a few nods closer to the competition than before. Admittedly, this was the kind of vehicle R & T testers had a hard time assessing; the car was so ‘middle of the road’ that it probably felt as ‘competent’ as any other average sedan sold in the market. Hard terrain for an enthusiast publication to appraise. Checklist completed, a thrilled Chevy launched an extensive campaign for their Taurus-Camry-Accord slayer: The Car You Knew America Could Build. What exactly were you saying there, GM?
Once sales numbers arrived, that sinful lack of commitment appeared in full force. Hard to fight best in class with a half-assed effort it turned out. Sales paling against the competition, the Malibu was left dangling on its own for a long 7 years*; against an ever updated Camry and Accord. The nameplate would survive though, finding along the way different degrees of ‘commitment’ from a rotating roster of managers, while GM shape-shifted/dissolved/contorted itself into whatever it is trying to be today.
Photo from the Cohort by Canadiancatgreen.
(*This generation of Malibu remained yet two more years in production as the Chevy Classic, from 2004-05, as a fleet model only).
“significantly closer to hitting the mark” – wow, what an endorsement! 🙂
Such a cynical car, and corporation. It deserved to backfire on them, in a big way. Build a car that deliberately looks subdued and restrained, to appear built with the same approach, as the highly respected competition. While long term reliability and durability, the true hallmarks that made the competition legendary, are the same General Motors garbage. It was inevitable, it would blow up in their face. But the drive for short-term profits and pleasing investors, with a lack of long-term vision, defined the company.
“If you can’t beat them, join them”… but join who? The rest of the no longer ready for prime-time players in Detroit at the time? All of whom were getting their asses kicked by the Japanese who took time to study the market, mostly designed and engineered as well as built their cars here in the thick of their target market, and then produced generally superlative vehicles.
Obviously the benchmark was the ’92-’96 Camry, likely the highest quality mid-size sedan ever produced. By the time the Malibu hit the market, so had that Camry’s successor, the not nearly as “fat” but still highly respected, long lasting, reliable, and value holding ’97 Camry. And a new Accord was on the horizon for 1998, regular as clockwork.
Detroit was fielding the fish-faced Taurus and the Contour. Chrysler the Intrepid and Cirrus which were starting to rear their issues and getting stale. And then the milquetoast Malibu, and worse, the Cutlass twin, emerged. Yay. A resounding success for National Rent-A-Car. And a bargain on the used-car market, something no manufacturer should aspire to.
I’ll give it one pat on the back though – The Malibu is the only domestic brand mid-size sedan nameplate with an internal combustion engine nameplate still on the market. However all of the Japanese and now also the Koreans still field respected entries in the segment. Nothing overly “exciting” but all also very competent overall.
“Given a choice, I’d even select the Malibu over its larger brother, the Lumina.” is about as damning with faint praise as one can get. “Significantly closer to hitting the mark”, while accurate, implies positive information to the casual observer, not those familiar with the previous attempt, Corsica. Only in a GM vacuum could this vehicle be considered “pleasing”.
I have a different take. This was a solid step forward for GM. It didn’t get them all the way to competitive in this class, but at least they were starting to play.
I owned the car that this replaced, in two-door Beretta guise. I loved my Beretta probably mostly because it was my first new car. But when I rented this-gen Bu at some airport, I could see that this was a step up in refinement. Not to say that the car was refined, not like any Accord or Camry I’d ridden in. But it wasn’t in the junior leagues anymore like the Beretta/Corsica were.
The next gen Malibu was a step back IMHO but the one after that finally met the challenge. The Accord and Camry were still superior, but at least you didn’t feel like you were obviously choosing the cheapest option when you bought that generation of Malibu.
True. One car I grew up in was a Corsica. Malibu as a rental (albeit being a passenger) was a leap forward. But looking back, it was playing catch up in 1997 and obsolete in 2004.
Until the Aveo came along, Corsica was the most craptastic rental I had ever driven. Much more recently it was a Versa.
Not a bad copycat of the 1992 Taurus. If this car had come out in 1992 as well.
The Cutlass was built on the same platform as the Malibu. It had to be the most tragic Oldsmobile ever built.
Cutlass was just a stopgap until Intrigue and Alero were ready. GM was almost in bankruptcy in early 90’s, and Malibu may have been best GM could afford
I was given one of these as a rental/insurance loaner while my then Honda was being repaired from a fender bender. To me it was simply a TOTAL blaahmobile. I was nice enough to “allow” (demand?) my wife use it while I drove her several years old Honda.
There was nothing about this car I found pleasing; it simply took up space, burned gas and sort of managed to move a person from Pt A to Pt C……whooppeeeeee…. DFO
A GM Deadly Sin. Which by definition was any car that did not stop or slow their long slide to bankruptcy. That certainly applies to this. Another GM rent-a-car special that undoubtedly made little or no profits and continued to debase any remaining reputation GM had at that point.
Yes, you’re right now that you say it. A model meant to make Chevy competitive in the mid-size segment again, and comes out with this ‘meh’ of a car. Meanwhile, my coworkers swooned for a Camry, or already owned Hondas.
It’s a car so bland one barely has any will to add its appropriate ‘deadly sin’ entry.
GM was in the doldrums already and Chevrolet, on which the corporation depended for survival, was leading the way to its bankruptcy. Chevrolet’s cars were doing so poorly in the marketplace that for two years in the 1990s, Chevrolet was not even the highest-selling GM car. It was outsold by Pontiac.
A revised N chassis which had its roots in the 1982 J platform. At least they did away with the twist beam rear axle.
Somewhat embarrassed to admit that when a friend pulled up in a rental one of these I didn’t realize it wasn’t a Camry/Accord until after riding in it for a while. It had that generic family car look outside and in, like a fake car you see in an insurance ad, and I didn’t really pay attention.
After thinking that it seemed cheap inside, then I noticed the Chevy logo on the wheel, which GM had gone to great pains to bury in the Malibu “wave” emblem.
Yes the Cutlass version was even worse. Like it went directly from cocktail napkin to production.
The wild part about the Oldsmobile was that it actually had a bespoke dashboard design, but was so similar to the Malibu you had to really be paying attention to actually notice it. Pointless.
In the Chevrolet, the cigarette lighter is on the left of the console. Let’s put ours… are you ready? ON THE RIGHT!!!
Oldsmobile! Oldsmobile! Oldsmobile! HooRay!!!
A friend has an 05 “Classic” Bought used as a retired fleet vehicle. It has been a dependable if boring car. Once itwas described to a valet as the most milquetoast car likely then on the lot. The valet knew and went directly to the car. It is that warm gold, only now the clercoat is failing due to 18 years of Arizona sun. Only failures have been the window armatures. the rear windows no longer operable, but because the reat of the thing just kepps on keepin’ on. My friend keeps it. A true beater DD. This guy drives cars and maintains them, mechanically. But washing and waxing is an alien concept. I won’t tell you about the paint on his collector cars, 69 Cadillac vert, 66 Catalina, 62 Corvair (which was shiny and running when I sold it to him.) You will cry.
My wife and I picked up in 1998 a brand new left over 1997 Malibu LS in that same color combo (maroon with tanish gray cloth). It was a good deal. The car road very well. It handled well. The dash layout was one of the best I’ve ever had even to this day. The visibility outward was great. The seats were comfy. It got good MPG. However, the car gave us a few minor issues that were really more annoyances than anything. The problem, just like you pointed out in the article, is that it checked all the correct boxes for me. It just didn’t push me over the line in any other way. We ended up trading that car in for a 1996 (yes, one year older) Buick Century. That car checked all the boxes and was much nicer in nearly every way.
Serious body rust, was not something often seen on cars since the late 1980s. But I remember almost shockingly seeing ’70s style body rot, on some of these, as they aged. Same with Chrysler ‘Cloud’ cars and minivans.
Behold, the humble N-Body Malibu! A car Rodney Dangerfield would’ve understood.
I bought my 2000 Malibu used in ‘05 for around five grand and it served pretty well for the next four years. It never left me stranded, although the famous GM Passlock ignition switch did give me a few fits until I found on the internet how to disable that system. I had no experience with its CamCord competition, so it seemed a decent enough vehicle for the time. I only sold it because I had gotten a better job that blessed me with the opportunity to lease my first new car. The Malibu ended up with family members who got a couple of more years of daily driver service out of it before it succumbed due to poor maintenance.
In my opinion, these deserve some respect as honest cars whose owners didn’t have to pay big money to buy or maintain. Not the most exciting cars, but they got the job done and looked OK doing it.
When we were shopping for a car in 1997, we considered the Malibu. My wife noticed something right off the bat when she sat in the driver seat — the interior door panel was too close to the seat. We ended up with the redesigned Camry instead, which served us well for 7 years and 111,000 miles. We sold it (on eBay) only because we wanted a car with head-protecting side airbags.
My brother had one of these for a week as a rental.
We went somewhere with my mother and she commented
that this was the “cheesiest” car she had ever been in.
Didn’t know she if ever used that word before, but it’s stuck
with me all these years and I’ve always thought she was right.
Well, there is a block of cheese being held up by an astronaut in the advertisment? Perhaps an ode to the Smashing Pumpkins “Tonight Tonight” music video that debuted around this time on MTV? As if Billy Corgan would be caught dead in a f-ing Malibu!
The N-body Malibu may be one of the bigger GM Deadly Sins in its much more subtle, completely mediocre execution relative to other, previous, much more obvious Deadly Sins.
It’s a car that typifies how ‘old’ GM operated as a completely average ‘just good enough’ copy of a five-year-old Toyota Camry that, while admittedly better than its Chevy predecessor, and at least on par with Ford and Chrysler products, the Malibu simply wasn’t enough to compete with the Pacific Rim cars.
IOW, just another rental/fleet special. Since the hoary old Roger Smith years, GM’s reputation was catching up with them as even the most faithful GM loyalists had been/were deserting en masse. It’s no wonder GM ‘finally’ went belly-up in 2009.
Was the odd oval logo an attempt at confusing people thinking it was actually a Toyota? Or to avoid an instant rejection at the sight of a bowtie?
I remember the tagline for that Malibu: “The Car You Knew America Could Build.” But then a few years later, the running joke for the Impala’s return was: “The Car You Knew America WOULD Build!”
I thought the Malibu was competent enough, in 1997. Only problem is, a new Accord and Altima came out for 1998. I seem to recall a lot of sentiment at the time, that the ’97 Camry was a bit of a letdown compared to the 1992-96. My biggest beef with GM back then, is there was too much overlaps in size classes. In my mind, the Malibu was an evolution of the compact car. It replaced the Corsica, which sort of replaced the Citation, which itself replaced the Nova/Chevy II. But, it was just too close in many respects to the Lumina. I think the Malibu’s trunk was slightly larger. And I remember thinking that the Malibu felt better inside, with regards to legroom. The Lumina was larger overall, and had more shoulder room. Basically, the Malibu would have been a good car for four tall/big passengers, whereas the Lumina would have been better for 5-6 short passengers.
A few years later, GM sort of corrected this with the 2000 Impala, which was bigger than the Lumina. But I swear, the back seat on the Impala still felt more cramped than the Malibu, so to me there was still a bit too much overlap.
At least with Ford and Chrysler back then, as you moved up the size classes, there didn’t seem to be much overlap.
I had a 2001 Malibu as a rental car once. I didn’t hate it, but it was just so mediocre, in every respect. GM cars back then often seemed like they made better used cars, than new ones. For instance, my Dad bought an ’03 Regal LS, in the September of ’03. It was a former rental, with about 19,500 miles on it, and he got it for something like $11,000 ($12,840 or so out the door, with tax, tags, an extended warranty he wanted, etc). I really didn’t care for the car, at the time. For comparison, I was driving a 2000 Intrepid at the time. However, I still thought the car was a great deal for my Dad.
I inherited the Regal when my Dad died in 2017, and still have it. And, I’ve learned to like it. I still hate the cramped back seat, which always seemed to be an issue with the GM-10/W-body, but it’s not often I have back seat passengers these days.
Alas, car companies aren’t in the business of making USED cars.