Chevrolet Epica Range Car Review

Facts At A Glance
Car: Chevrolet Epica range
Prices: £14,260-£17,360 – on the road INSURANCE GROUPS: 9
Emissions: 169-199g/km
Performance: [2.0 petrol] 0-60mph 9.9s / Max Speed 129mph
Fuel Consumption: [2.0 petrol] (combined) 34mpg
Safety: ABS, Twin front, head and side airbags, anti-lock brakes WILL IT FIT IN YOUR GARAGE ?: Length/Width/Heightmm 4805/1810/1450mm

CHEVY’S EPIC ASSIGNMENT

Our Rating: 6.4 / 10

Chevrolet face an uphill task establishing a toehold in the medium range class but tight pricing will help. Andy Enright assesses the Epica’s chances

Although one in every sixteen cars on the planet is a Chevrolet, that’s certainly not the case in the UK, one of the few markets where the American company has yet to establish a significant presence. This situation looks as if it could change, Chevrolet having acquired Daewoo and are bringing in an increasing number of cars that are better suited to the tastes of UK buyers. The Epica is at the large end of the medium range family saloon market and is hoping to take a generously sized bite out of the market shares of its well-established rivals.

If there’s one lesson that American companies have learned to their cost in recent years, it’s that their products don’t always travel very well. Trying to foist a car that’s right for the US market onto Europeans is a strategy destined for failure and the opposite is frequently true as well. Ford’s Focus shifts in monster quantities across Europe but in the US it’s not a major player. Likewise, it would be hard to see the best selling American models, such as the Ford F-Series pick up, threatening the best sellers list over here. Chevrolet’s best selling car in the US is the Silverado pick up, another car that would possibly be only of interest over here to construction workers compensating for something.

The quest for the true ‘world car’ that appeals to all markets has proven a fool’s errand but what manufacturers have increasingly come to realise is that Asian cars often work well as a compromise between American excess and a European obsession with sporty handling. When Chevrolet acquired Daewoo, it also tapped into just this sort of design capability and the Epica, built at Daewoo’s Bupyong plant, may well wear an American badge but it’s far from the sort of overblown bloater that some may expect.

British buyers are getting wise to the Chevy brand anyway. They know that Daewoo was producing some increasingly smart cars before it ran into financial difficulty and with the fiscal clout of General Motors behind it, aided by a badge with more equity than the old Korean one could ever muster. The Epica, priced from just over £14,000, is off to a decent start. That price is not only less than you’d pay for some Focus-sized hatchbacks but also around £3,500 less than you’d pay for this car’s nearest direct Korean competitor, Hyundai’s Sonata.

The shape is neat, albeit slightly unadventurous, and it’s possible to walk round the car without being able to spot a bad angle. The high haunches and sculpted flanks are reminiscent of Honda’s latest Accord, in itself no bad thing. There’s more Honda-like DNA when you move round to the back of the car and until most driver’s clock that Chevrolet bow-tie badge and the Epica name, they’ll assume it’s an Accord.

The front end is the most distinctive with big headlamps smeared backwards onto the wings and a very clean look to the grille and underbumper assembly. The rising waistline gives the car a dynamic appearance, although the overhangs are a little longer than many of its rivals. With an increased emphasis on pedestrian safety, the days of wheel-at-each-corner design may well be on the wane. The Epica offers a lot of car, the tape measure showing it to be fully 4,805mm long. By way of comparison, an Accord is 4,665mm long, a Mondeo 4,731mm long and a Peugeot 407 breaking the tape at 4,676mm. In fact, the Epica is closer to the 4,841mm length of a BMW 5 Series than the current crop of family saloons and hatches.

Two engines are offered for sale in the UK, both of 2.0-litre capacity. The petrol unit is a 141bhp straight-six which is set transversely across the car. This would be a problem with most straight sixes as they are, by their very nature, rather long engines and are usually mounted in line, driving the rear wheels