2005 Chevrolet Cobalt SS Supercharged
A supercharged, 205-hp, 2-litre version of GM's Ecotec inline-four will be the heart of the third iteration of Chevrolet's Cobalt coupe lineup, GM has announced.
The 2005 Chevrolet Cobalt SS Supercharged Coupe will join the Cobalt Coupe and Coupe SS when they go on sale later this year.
Along with an engine that sends 205 hp at 5600 rpm and 200 lb.-ft. of torque at 4,400 rpm to the front wheels through a five-speed manual shifter, the SS Supercharged will also get a chassis, suspension and brakes that were developed on Germany's ultra-challenging Nurburgring racetrack.
The car will also look the part, thanks to 18-inch wheels and performance tires, and distinctive exterior and interior styling.
''The Cobalt SS Supercharged Coupe was developed to appeal to the tuner enthusiast,'' says Pete Langenhorst, Chevrolet Cobalt marketing director. ''We engineered from the very beginning all the key components to deliver an exciting driver's high performance sport coupe -- straight from the factory.''
Cobalt and its Pontiac Pursuit sibling (which currently is unique to Canada) both use GM's new Kappa architecture, which the company designed to be extremely stiff and responsive.
''The rigid lower-dominant body structure is engineered as a single unit for mass efficiency and stiffness,'' says Langenhorst, and ''the underbody uses high-strength steel as welded members in strategic locations for maximum strength, structural integrity, mass optimization and crashworthiness.''
GM then took the car to northeastern Germany and ran it around the Nurburgring road course, which features more than 170 turns (some of them quite spectacular) in its 20 km.
That testing created some special settings in the Cobalt SS Supercharged, which began with a ride height reduction of 10 mm but also includes changes to the strut-type front suspension and the semi-independent torsion beam rear setup.