The message department at General Motors would prefer any thought of fleet sales remain far away, and yet there’s no doubt that, in addition to being a gracious, spacious family sedan, the new Impala will make a cop car of great distinction.
How do I know? In the two weeks I drove around in a midnight-blue Impala—redesigned for model-year 2014, the 10th generation of the Bowtie brand’s most bankable nameplate—the car was the subject of constant, well, by members of the law-enforcement community. Cops leered at it; they followed it around the block. A guy in an aging Ford Crown Victoria—maybe an FBI agent, maybe a chicken inspector—practically ran off the road doing a double take.
Clearly, the Impala has star power with the powers that be.
Alas, they’ll have to wait. GM has no announced plans to offer the new Impala in a Police Patrol Vehicle (PPV) configuration (the previous-generation Impala, sadly aging, will drone on as a cop car for a while). GM Fleet and Commercial’s focus is on the full-size, rear-drive Chevrolet Caprice, which returned in 2011 after a 15-year hiatus, in all its auxiliary oil-cooler glory.
The trouble, if you ask me, is that the Caprice looks wimpy, more mall cop than highway patrolman. Whereas the new Impala—bull-necked and stocky, with a body like the guy in your office who lifts weights and drinks a 12-pack a day—looks like it has to be reckoned with. Not only that, the Impala has 3.6 inches more front legroom than the larger Caprice (45.8 vs. 42.2 inches) and an even bigger trunk (18.8 vs. 17.4 cubic feet). Cops love a big trunk.
Such are the packaging advantages of a transverse V6, front-drive powertrain.
I’d ask you to think about official cars, sedans that are part of the presentation of authority in society: patrol cars, cars for fire marshals and FBI agents and in somber shades or white, black and blue. You know these cars. These are what The Man drives.
Cars in these roles need to have stature, some visual claim to respect, a professional bearing, and that is what has made the 2006-to-present Dodge Charger such a hit with law enforcement (it wasn’t the small back seat, that’s for sure). The Charger has gun-sight cross hairs in the grille, for heaven’s sake.
The Impala likewise conveys a look of high-performance utility: the snub-nosed front end and domed hood; the thick, muscled flanks below a relatively low, narrowed greenhouse with blacked-out roof pillars; the fastback roof, and rearward sweep of the greenhouse ending in a polished-alloy sail-panel accent. The sides of the car are sucked in between the strong shoulder lines above and the polished spear accents below, set in deep drafts of sheet metal. However, the accent flourish over the rear wheel well is wrong, wrong, wrong. The radius of every curve on this car’s exterior, from the headlamps to the taillamps, is the same, except this one. Can’t be. I must be seeing things.
The point is, even in civilian drag, the Impala looks like a cop, or at least a plainclothes detective. The Caprice looks like it’s in the last throes of doughnut addiction.
Our parlor guest, the Impala, competes in the five-seat, full-sedan league against the likes of the Hyundai Azera, Toyota Avalon and Nissan Maxima (front-wheel drive); Ford Taurus (all-wheel drive); and Dodge Charger and Chrysler 300 (rear-wheel drive). This segment is a knife fight.
The Impala is a riff on GM’s Epsilon platform (Buick LaCrosse, Cadillac XTS), and the shared genome is apparent in the light, linear, frictionless touch of the Impala’s electric steering; the seat/wheel driver positioning; and the similar timbre of cabin ambience. The Impala shares much of the Buick’s hushed “QuietTuning” ambience—acoustically laminated glass, heavily muffled induction sounds, and lots of noise-abating urethanes in the body and roof. As always with a GM product, you have to pay attention to the powertrain noise and isolation at startup, a common weakness. In the Impala with the 3.6-liter V6, the thing purred like a kitten.
Prices rises through five trim levels, from $26,725 for the base LS with a 2.5-liter, 195-hp in-line four-cylinder engine; all the way to the 2LTZ (starting at $35,770), powered by a 305-hp, direct-injection V6 and six-speed automatic, with standard navi, premium sound system and the full complement of driver-assistance tech, as well as plenty of glitzy exterior brightwork.
My Impala, a fully loaded 2LT with the big 6—putting out a respectable 83.3-hp per liter of displacement, naturally aspirated—was a spirited car, for sure, with 19-inch painted aluminum wheels and some suspiciously amazing tires to help it around corners. Accelerating onto the highway, the engine spools up joyfully and the six-speed automatic shuffles ratios firmly and discretely. Zero-to-60-mph pace is in the mid 7′s but the car is stronger overall than that.
For a big family sedan, the Impala’s level cornering and settled handling are commendable. The seats are nicely bolstered and comfortable, the ride well-damped. There isn’t a plan to offer a pursuit package in the Impala. Civilians will have to content themselves with the rear-drive Chevy SS, based on the Holden G8/Caprice, coming soon (Holden is GM’s Australian subsidiary).
Much about the Impala was predetermined: rough dimensions, rough weight, powertrains and targeted mileage, hood height—a million things, really. In the final analysis, car designers are usually working in a very small box.
And particularly in this segment, it’s a Battle of the Purchasing Departments. The Impala’s accountants have come out swinging, signing off on the Impala’s very smart, splashy cabin, centered on the MyLink system, GM’s 8-inch, icon-driven touch screen, with nicely contemporary menu and navi graphics. The signature flourish: With a touch, the display panel rises up, levitating out of the dash to reveal a hidden, lockable compartment.
Leather seating with contrasting piping, indirect lighting, surround sound. It’s nice in there.
The other line item of note is the car’s phalanx of driver-assistance tech in the “Advanced Safety Package” ($890), including: forward collision alert (warning lights/tone to alert the driver when the front closing rate is too high) and rear cross-traffic alert (helps in backing out of blind parking spaces). They both work like a champ.
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