Generally, the handling is flat, predictable and well-mannered. Its innate dynamics are naturally front-heavy, but with the Z-rated tires you have to push pretty hard before the SS-SC will understeer. The front suspension is independent MacPherson strut, and the rear is what Chevy calls a semi-independent torsion beam design. The suspension is a substantially beefed-up version of the GM’s multinational Delta platform (under the Opel Vectra and the Saturn Ion) with stiffer springs and struts and thicker anti-roll bars. But you can’t deny the Cobalt SS-SC is extremely well sorted, handling wise. Everything else is negotiable.Ĭhevrolet never tires of telling people it develops its cars on the Nordschleife, the hilly 13-mile road course at the Nürburgring, Germany’s version of NASA’s Vomit Comet. Here’s a little secret from your friend the car tester: Great handling is about 80% tires, 10% seat and 10% weight balance. If I had to point to the fun-driving chakra in this car, it would be these amazing seats, which seem to suck you into the structure of the car.
The limited-slip diff is worth having if only because it comes as a package with the Recaro performance seats. Any faster than that and the car starts to wear on your - or at least my - aged wits. The car’s resonant frequency - when wind noise, road noise and all the whirring and chirring from the engine and driveline are at optimum equipoise - is around 75 mph. This feels like a sub-6-second-to-60-mph car, but it runs out of gears on the top end. The final-drive ratio sharpens the step-off acceleration and then the supercharger takes over, pulling a blue streak to the 6,500-rpm redline. The clutch pedal is nice and heavy, and uptake smooth and progressive through the sweep of the pedal. Thanks to equal-length halfshafts, which divide power evenly between the two wheels, there’s no torque steer to speak of and the car accelerates dead straight. As an option - and one I highly recommend for this peaky front-driver - you can also get a Quaife limited-slip differential.įrom a standing start, this thing goes off like a bug bomb. This tranny has a larger clutch plate than the one in the regular Cobalt, 1-inch shorter shift throws and a quicker final-drive ratio of 4.05:1. The smack from the supercharger is complemented by a more robust five-speed transmission, the same cog-swapper as in the Saab 9-3. It will run on regular unleaded, says Chevy, but with diminished power. If you seek further supercharger enlightenment, look to your left: A racy little AutoMeter boost gauge grins at you from the driver’s side windshield pillar.Īs for efficiency, the SS-SC’s fuel economy is rated at 23 miles per gallon city, 29 highway - I wonder what it would be without that wing dragging in the windstream? - and the car prefers 91 octane. In case you missed the badge on the trunk lid, there’s a supercharger under the hood, stuffing up to 12 pounds of water-cooled boost down the gullet of a 2.0-liter, twin-cam four cylinder, producing a maximum whoop of 205 horsepower and 200 pound-feet of torque (compared with the naturally aspirated 2.0-liter’s 145 hp and 155 pound feet of torque). So, why not? Devoted hobbyists aside, most buyers in the sport-compact segment are too busy Xboxing and pounding down Red Bull to fiddle with their cars.ĭespite its be-winged, look-at-me audacity, the Cobalt SS-SC package is far from superficial. Ford, Chevy and Dodge have each gamed this segment pretty well, and each has rushed to offer turn-key screamers to the lads, who can finance it all with low, low interest. If you tried to buy all the performance bricolage yourself - stuff like the 18-inch alloy wheels, Z-rated tires, 11.6-inch front discs and 10.6-inch rear rotors (replacing the Cobalt’s rear drums) and all the urban-hovercraft rocker-panel extensions and front and rear fascia - you would easily spend more than this car’s base price of $21,995. While its fortunes in the high-volume Everyman-sedan market have been ever so sketchy lately, the world’s biggest car company definitely has some mojo in male-enhancement products, limited-production cars such as the Corvette C6 Z06, the Pontiac GTO - now with hood scoops! - and our test car, the 2005 Chevy Cobalt SS Supercharged Coupe, which is a very fine little car despite its resemblance to a cheese slicer.Ī factory-tuner version of the Cobalt coupe, the Cobalt SS-SC - pronounced sick to the yo-boys? - makes a case-closed argument for the wisdom of letting professionals build your car, instead of ordering a bunch of aftermarket junk out of a catalog and having Shane with the tattoos bolt it on. INSTEAD of General Motors, how about Specific Motors?
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