Published:”Thursday, December 13, 2007 It can be a difficult time when owners of high-excitement coupes, roadsters and sedans are forced to surrender their fun-mobiles when practicality comes knocking. ARTICLE TOOLS Printer friendly E-mail Font: * * * * But do you really have to give it all up? Not to worry as Chevrolet has endowed its compact Equinox sport-utility vehicle with more under-the-hood and visual excitement designed to fuel the passions of the performance deprived.

Since 2005, the five-passenger Equinox has been one of those value-laden workhorses that clearly identifies with anyone needing to cart adults, children, pets and all their assorted belongings in relative comfort. It also tries to keep the family transportation budget in check with its reasonable price. These qualities have made the Equinox, along with its sister-ship Pontiac Torrent, popular with the active family set.

However competent it is, the Equinox wasn’t really built to stir the souls of buyers searching for performance. For this trigger-happy group, the new Equinox Sport might just be the fix. Available in both front- and all-wheel-drive, the Sport joins an expanding lineup that includes the base LS and mid-range LT. But it’s the Sport that comes with the kind of content that should appeal to performance-oriented buyers.

The most important difference sits between the front fenders where a 264-horsepower 3.6-litre V6 replaces the 185-horsepower 3.4-litre V6 that remains the sole choice on the rest of the Equinox fleet. In addition, the Sport is equipped with a six-speed automatic transmission as opposed to the five-speed automatic used with the base V6. Steering-wheel-mounted “tap-shift” controls allow for manual finger-tip gear selection.