• Production of the Chevrolet Malibu sedan will end this coming fall.
Ten years ago, the Chevrolet product range included several cars. One by one, they were withdrawn from the catalog; the Impala, Cruze, Sonic and Spark all disappeared as SUVs took over the market. One managed to weather the storm – until now. This coming fall, the Malibu is also going into retirement.
General Motors will officially end production of the sedan this autumn, according to the Detroit News. Its death has been announced for several years, but now we know what date to put on the death certificate.
Ironically, the car still sells well, which is why the automaker kept it in the catalog for so long, against all the odds. In 2023, it even ranked third in terms of sales for Chevrolet, behind the Silverado pickup and the Equinox SUV. It's worth noting that the majority of sales are to rental companies.
A quick history of the Chevy Malibu
The name Malibu was first chosen by General Motors in 1964 for what was then called the Chevelle Malibu. The name represented a variant of the Chevelle model. It was so popular that in 1978, the name Chevelle was withdrawn in favour of Malibu. The Malibu offered from 1978 to 1983 was one of the best vehicles in Chevrolet history.
In 1984, it was retired and replaced by the Celebrity, a front-wheel drive (rather than rear-wheel drive) car. That model was itself replaced by the Lumina, which was joined in 1996 by a new model named Malibu, the two sedans cohabitating in the lineup for five years. The Malibu has been in continuous production ever since.
The Fairfax, Kansas, facility where the Malibu is assembled will be refurbished for production of the next-generation Chevrolet Bolt, which in its future iteration will be based on GM’s Ultium platform.