Just in case you lived under a Mars rock for a while and didn't get the memo, Dodge and Chevrolet abandoned three significant nameplates that have been around for decades this month.
According to the rumor mill, the Dodge Challenger and Charger recently concluded production. Via insider sources, the final 'L car' ever built was a Challenger – a mighty SRT Demon 170, at least. Meanwhile, the final Charger was a Scat Pack Widebody version.
There are still hopes for the Charger – Stellantis has allowed Dodge to morph the nameplate back to its two-door fastback origins. We might even see Hurricane inline-six turbo mills alongside the EV powertrain variants.
Unfortunately for GM fans, Chevrolet doesn't have plans for an immediate successor for the sixth generation Camaro, so that makes the end of production for the Convertible and coupe even bitter. As such, it is no wonder that many folks are not particularly happy with GM and Stellantis abandoning the American pony ways and allowing the S650 Ford Mustang to roam free starting with the 2024 model year, at least as far as ICE-powered models are concerned.
No worries, the imaginative realm of digital car content creators has recently come up with a solution or two for Chevrolet's predicament. More precisely, the good folks over at the Q Cars channel on YouTube aim to daze and amaze the audience with a potential styling of their vision for the Impala and Prizm revivals – thus building a true passenger car family around the mid-size Malibu sedan and the high-performance Corvette range.
Many outlets across the rumor mill believe that Chevrolet will present the tenth generation Malibu next year for the 2025MY, and it's pretty obvious that the parallel universes of vehicular CGI have developed an unofficial obsession not just for the mid-size sedan but also for additional passenger car models that could accompany it below and above in the compact and full-size classes.
Some CGI-loving venues believe that Chevrolet might easily bring back the compact Cruze and beloved Malibu nameplates to put alongside the 2025 Malibu in the virtual GM lineup, but the resident pixel master from Q Cars obviously has eyes and digital brush strokes for the big Impala sedan and a quirky revival of the Prizm moniker – originally sold as the Geo Prizm under a partnership with Toyota as a rebadged Toyota Corolla.
So, what do you think, should and could Chevrolet play with both the expanding C8 Corvette roster (Stingray, Z06, E-Ray currently – ZR1 and Zora are incoming) and a more prominent passenger car family consisting of a reborn Chevy Prizm compact sedan, the all-new Malibu mid-size four-door, and the revived Impala full-size saloon? Or is it better if they concentrate on getting all those Ultium-based EVs on the market first?
Aurel has aimed high all his life (literally, at 16 he was flying gliders all by himself) so in 2006 he switched careers and got hired as a writer at his favorite magazine. Since then, his work has been published both by print and online outlets, most recently right here, on autoevolution. Full profile
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