new pocket rocket; Is GM getting serious about small-car performance?(Special Report)(General Motors)

Byline: WES RAYNAL

How long has it been since General Motors took a serious whack at the small-car performance market with an all-new car?

Well, the new Chevrolet Cobalt goes on sale in the fall, replacing the Cavalier. Cavalier rides on the 23-year-old J platform (Cavalier, Pontiac Sunfire and Cadillac Cimarron), known for being sensible and cheap but unexciting in the extreme. So it has been awhile. Ply a GM guy with enough drinks up at the corner bar and eventual-ly he'll admit the world's biggest automaker has pretty much fallen flat on its face when it comes to small, interesting cars-the Cavalier Z24 falls short when it comes to competing with the likes of the Ford Focus, Honda Civic and Toyota Corolla.

With the new Cobalt, though, GM wants you to know that after all that time it is getting serious about the lower end of the market: The car has the potential to be a huge improvement for GM, based as it is on the company's global Delta platform. If the Cobalt-in all its forms-isn't a hit, the General might as well just build trucks. Even the GM brass thinks so.

Of all the Cobalts, the SS Supercharged is the one that gets our blood pumping the most. It is meant to establish the image for the range, which includes a sedan, a coupe and eight trim levels. The SS Supercharged comes from Mark Reuss' GM Perfor-mance Group. That GM chose to launch the SS Supercharged- a car aimed right at The Fast and the Furious crowd-along with the rest of the Cobalt line might just be an indicator the company is finally starting to get it when it comes to the small-car enthusiast.

The SS Supercharged is the GM performance division's second car offering after the Saturn Ion Red Line (AW, Dec. 1, 2003). "It is sort of a sister car [to the Ion Red Line],'' said engineering manager Ken Wasmer. "The car is aim-ed squarely at the tuner crowd. You can buy an SS Supercharged from the dealer, but you could also get a base Cobalt coupe, and the supercharged car shows what you could do to it if you wanted to.'' Wasmer says the SS Super-charged will take on the Civic Si, Focus SVT and Dodge SRT-4 directly. Like those cars, it will also serve as inspiration for the tuners who seek to make something more from the base models.

An aluminum, supercharged 2.0-liter 16-valve four-cylinder Eco-tec is at the heart of the car. GM is high on this line of four-cylinder engines. Versions of the Ecotec can be found in small GMs worldwide, including the Opel Signum, Vectra, Astra and Zafira, the Saab 9-3, the Chevrolet Malibu, Pontiac Sunfire and Grand Am, and in the Saturn Ion and Vue in the United States. The company also uses Ecotec engines in its factory front-drive drag racing program, where in turbocharged form it develops a whopping 1000 hp. Further, a modified Ecotec powered an Ion Redline to a land-speed record at Bonneville last year (AW, Oct. 27, 2003). That car went 212.684 mph in the G/Blown Fuel Altered class, with longtime GM engineer Jim Minneker at the wheel.