10:00PM - 05.12.'14
|
News Source: Copyright 2014 Seyth Miersma / AOL autoblog.com
|
After the obligatory product presentation for the 2015 Trax, I caught up with Steve Majoros, Chevrolet's director of marketing for crossovers and cars, and asked him to elaborate on which markets his planners believe will be the hot starters for this tiny CUV. Without much hesitation, Majoros began to click off traditional sales havens for Subaru, namely, New England and the snowy bits of the East Coast, Colorado and the Pacific Northwest. That news might not surprise you, but it did me. Perhaps it's something as basic as the Trax's tall-hatchback looks, or the emphasis Chevrolet put on the urban driving cycle during my test in San Diego. But before my chat with Majoros, I'd considered this a crossover pointed at the Millennial city mouse more than his bumpkin cousin. But a closer look had me re-examining the granola cred of Chevy's smallest crossover. Having spent my fair share of time in New England and around New Englanders, I started by mentally listing the Trax's Subaru-like traits: practicality, thrift, all-weather ability and, well, just a dash of ugliness. (I suppose a hatchback needn't always be ugly to sell in Maine, or Boulder or Portland... but a 'distinctive' face doesn't seem to hurt.) After a day of driving through sunny San Diego and its surroundings, I can say that Trax makes an interesting case for itself against the standard bearers of the L.L. Bean set, but I'm less sure of its argument for young urbanites. Chevy's has downsized its own, rather conservative crossover styling to fit the proportions of the subcompact Trax; to my eyes, it looks a lot like an Equinox whose suit shrunk in the wash. That's fine for offering a cohesive look for the Chevy family of crossovers, but it seems out of step with the rest of the segment. If the Trax's current competitive set were the cast of a high school-based TV show, the Kia Soul would play the lovable nerd, the Nissan Juke perhaps the outsider musician and the Subaru XV Crosstrek the athletic outdoorsy kid. Chevy may see the Trax as the hipster chick wearing intentionally ironic mom jeans, but to me the styling is a little too on the nose; more like an actual grownup trying to hang with the kids. These mom jeans are genuine. Per my earlier point, that quasi-conservative look may be just fast enough for staid New Englanders, but I have a hard time seeing the bluff, big-Bowtied front end playing in Bushwick or Wicker Park. Inside, the Trax is every bit as excitement-free. Don't get me wrong, the styling of the cockpit is clean and refreshingly free of the kinds of faux-lux ornamentation that has turned many an entry-level GM vehicle into a gauche mess. But there's no part of the interior that feels youthful, or edgy, or otherwise indicative of must-have-it design. When viewed practically, though, the interior is the spiritual kinsman to a pair of duck boots paired with Carhartt cargo pants. Visibility from the driver's seat is excellent, forward and side, though the smallish rear window and raked roofline detract a bit from the backwards visage. The seat itself is cozy and upright, slightly flat, but not bad for a vehicle nobody will basically ever want to enter a hot corner in. A raised ride height, relative to traditional hatchbacks, means getting into and out of the seat is a doddle, too. Most importantly, cupholders and cubbies surround: there are two gloveboxes (lil' and big), and a pop-open nook at the top of the center console, goodly door pockets and four receptacles for front-passenger beverages alone. The rear seats aren't nearly as commodious as the front, lacking especially in the headroom department, but there's still reasonable room for two adults back there. (Assuming the adults aren't corn-fed Dutch boys like me.) And, perhaps most important for the practical-minded, there's a great big load space to be found under the hatchbacked rear. Even with the seats up, there seems to be enough room to lug a 3,000-watt generator and a week's worth of groceries up to the camp... you know, as a general "for instance." Chevy says that with the rear seats folded (something that seems to require the front seats to be far forward to accomplish), the Trax will swallow 48.4 cubic feet's worth of stuff. That's a bigger hold than the Juke but smaller by 3.5 cubes than the Crosstrek's hatch, and way smaller than the clever Soul's 61.3 cubic feet of stowage. As I mentioned at the top, Chevy seemed to be heavily pushing the urban-driver's car theme by way of our prescribed driving route. Starting at the airport, we did some coastal commuting up to La Jolla, got in a few quick turns on stretches by the ocean, and then traversed downtown San Diego as though we were residents. |
