Posted on Friday 15 December 2006
It’s rare to hear a company so openly admit it was wrong, but that’s what GM is saying when it comes to its use of the “super sport” label. In recent years it has applied the moniker to the undeserving Malibu sedan, which only gets minor feature and visual updates. “Not every car that has some extra features and fancy racing stripes can be an SS,” said Ed Welburn, GM Design global vice president in an interview with The Detroit News. GM will no longer offer a SS version of the Malibu and only apply it to cars such as the Cobalt SS Supercharged (does that make it the Cobalt SSS?).
From now on, SS vehicles will need to have tangible performance benefits such as increased power, better brakes, and handling improvements. GM introduced a new version of the Equinox SUV dubbed the Sport yesterday. Though it does have some performance upgrades, GM decided not to make a SS for this model.
Now if only we could get every other carmaker to stop making silly “sports versions” with “race bred styling.”