Sunset of the Sedan: 2019 Chevrolet Blazer vs. Chevy Impala – MotorTrend

“Longer! Lower! Wider!”

For decades, those three words triggered fever dreams of speed, style, and, with a wink, an extra sprinkle of sexiness. In 1965, they helped talk 1 million Americans into the Chevrolet Impala, which remains the single biggest-selling passenger car this country has ever known. But walk into a Ford showroom next year, and you might have trouble spotting its last remaining “car”—the iconic Mustang—amid a Stonehenge of towering crossovers, SUVs, and trucks. There will be no sedans at all down the street at the Chrysler showroom, and by late next year, the history book will also snap shut on that onetime king of American sedans—the iconic Impala.

What the heck has happened?

Everybody who was blindsided by this apparent rogue wave of change now seems to be an expert on what caused it. Here on our little island of car-testing expertise we happen to pride ourselves on measuring performance, and as I commute every day on L.A. ‘s infamous 405, I’m often surrounded by newbie crossover drivers weaving through lanes (sometimes past me). Do they really understand how their SUVs’ dynamics differ from those of the sedans they traded in? Judging by how closely they tailgate at 80 mph, I wonder.

And I’m guessing plenty of workers at GM’s Hamtramck assembly line are wondering what’s next for them when Impala production ceases next year. That car’s demise deserves a moment of reflection and postmortem perspective. For me, it means it’s time to snap on the latex gloves for an automotive autopsy to better understand how we got here.

Was it a justifiable homicide? Or an irrational casualty of the notorious whims of automotive fashion? The following is a three-view look at this. Tom Vanderbilt, author of Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us), will give us his perspective driving a crossover (in Brooklyn, no less). Executive editor Mark Rechtin has assembled a big-data look at the trends of the phenomenon and what the future could hold for our generation of elephantine transport. I’ve gone micro, zooming in on some measurable trade-offs between two representative examples of vehicle configuration.

It seems only fitting that the sedan corpse we’ve laid out on the dissection table is the final iteration of the once-iconic Impala. The crossover we have under arrest for its murder is the new, high-interest Blazer. In fact, it could be the very crossover that many Impala drivers will switch to.



Ad Time Remaining:

Up Next

CANCEL

NEXT UP SORT BY

Recent
Trending

Behind the Wheel: The 2019 Mazda3

9 Reasons Why the Lincoln Aviator Is a Luxe Looker

Hot Wheels™ Legends Tour: Miami

9 Reasons Why the New Mercedes-AMG G 63 Is the Ultimate Luxe Truck

Behind the Wheel: The 2019 Chevrolet Blazer

Best of Classic Hot Rods at the Grand National Roadster Show

Behind the Wheel: The 2020 Lamborghini Huracán Evo

7 Reasons Why the Tatra 87 Is an Early Automotive Icon

6 Reasons Why the Mercedes-Benz EQC400 Is Crucial

Behind the Wheel: The 2019 Honda Passport

How to Build an Indestructible Driveshaft

8 Reasons Why the Mercedes-AMG GT C Is the Best GT

9 Reasons Why the Kia Telluride Leads With Tech

9 Reasons Why the Mazda R360 Is an Iconic Kei Car

Rare Metals: Classic Cars of the 1990s at Throwback Meet II