Email to a friend Printer friendly Font: * * * * “This car is critically important to Chevrolet — we’re going to promote the heck out of it,” Hay said in an interview from Oshawa. While he won’t put a dollar figure on what it will cost GM to sell the Malibu in the coming year, he will say “it’s one of the biggest launches in Chevrolet history.” The reason for the big promotional campaign for the sixth-generation Malibu is the amount of ground Chevrolet has to make up.

The Toyota Camry and Honda Accord are now cemented in consumer’s minds as good-looking, high-quality, reasonably priced mid-sized cars. So is the 2008 Malibu, finally, according to a consensus of North American critics. Some are even calling the Malibu the new benchmark in the segment — the car the Japanese will now have to strive to beat. “We feel Malibu is the car Canadians can’t ignore in the mid-size segment,” Hay says.

The Canadian ad campaign has been built on selling the car’s “outstanding value” for a vehicle with its presence, performance and features. If Canadians take notice, GM stands to take a larger slice of 26 per cent of the Canadian light vehicle market — which is what the mid-size segment represents. By comparison, the minivan segment is only 20 per cent in Canada.

The Malibu is also offered as a hybrid model (in showrooms in December) which at a list price of $26,999 is priced $5,000 below the Camry hybrid. GM thinks the pricing could put the fuel-saving technology in many more driveways. Of interest to Windsor car buyers, the transmissions in the base model and the hybrid are produced at GM’s Windsor Transmission plant. With the introduction of the Fusion last year, Ford proved that Detroit can compete and win in the segment.