Mk3 Cavalier Owners Club | Vauxhall Cavalier Dot Com

Spotted a brand new 2017 Cavalier on my travels in a show room in China. The Chevvy Cavalier comes with a 1.5l petrol engine, full leather interior and air con as standard for £10.5k and the top spec with an auto box, sat nav and reverse sensors & camera ect. is £12.5k. There was also a ford Escort in the show rooms which is an inferior competitor;

IMG_3935 by terry_tibbs2012, on Flickr

IMG_3936 by terry_tibbs2012, on Flickr

IMG_3937 by terry_tibbs2012, on Flickr

IMG_3938 by terry_tibbs2012, on Flickr

IMG_3939 by terry_tibbs2012, on Flickr

IMG_3932 by terry_tibbs2012, on Flickr

You can tell that isn't a Euro spec Cavalier, looking at the lack of plastic covers in the engine bay.

The NCAP rating will be well below Euro standards.

Looks odd. Not a patch on a 25 year old Cavalier.

Robsey wrote:Looks odd. Not a patch on a 25 year old Cavalier.

sadly just another re-branding of a well-loved name. They're almost proud to distance themselves from originals



The new cavalier appears to be the same.
.
I only gave it four on my newly thought of puke advisor because it does have a couple of saving graces:
1st

Robsey wrote:You can tell that isn't a Euro spec Cavalier, looking at the lack of plastic covers in the engine bay.

-It's nice to see an engine as it should be, surely these covers restrict cooling?
2nd
The engine bay looks like it's laid out on a grid-everything square and neat looking.
But for those it would have got the 5 puke rating

Dull, ugly and boring, both inside and outside. Same as everything that is produced nowadays that is NOT made in USA. Tiny engine compartment, the front seats look like an IKEA special bargain bin item, the rear end is all wrong, why have they fitted tail lights from a brand new Peugeot super-mini? They want to rip those badges off and put them on a real chevy!

And that "escort"? That's basically a Mondeo.

Should have taken pictures of the copywright infringement cars too really, they are made by the proper Chinese car makers where the dealerships will sell you mazda or Jeep badges with the new car for example, a google search will find those. That Escort is, I think based on an old focus and like the Cavalier, is an 'entry-class' of Western cars designed for the Chinese market. You can pick up a new BYD Chinese car for around £3k, it won't last long without parts breaking down & corroding then about 5 years later need scrapping, but that Cavalier in full spec is £1k cheaper than the equivalent reowe so at least good value if nothing else.

That is chinese commerce for you.

Pinch everyone else's designs.

Make copies of those designs with cheap inferior materials...

Then flood the markets with shoddy products.

I don't think China bothers with patents and copyright laws. They never did in the past.

The modern car industry is just a shadow of it's former self.
Emissions regulations, safety regulations and changes in the customer base for new cars have stifled any innovation or individualism.

If you wind the clock back 25 years, the customer base was very different. The fleet market was far larger than it is today, there were more younger drivers buying cars and the market as a whole was male dominated. Added to that, emissions regulations were far less stringent and there were no EU safety laws dictating the shape of cars.
This meant a lot of your everyday cars like the Cavalier and Mondeo of the time were designed to appeal to a completely different audience than todays cars. An audience that was primarily male and probably a bit younger than today's too. So safety, economy and ease of use weren't as high a priority while looks, performance and driver appeal were.

Nowadays everything has to meet a ton of regulations while conforming to customer expectations of size, economy, practicality aerodynamics etc..
If every car has to meet the same design criteria, is there really any wonder why they all look the same?