Chevy Hides Final ICE Sedan Behind a Wall at the 2023 NY Auto Show, They Shouldn’t Have

Want proof? Well, one good place to look is a far-off corner at the edge of Chevrolet's booth at the show this year. Here, tucked away almost behind a wall, sits what might be the final Chevy sedan ever manufactured when it's slated to end in 2025. This is the 2023 Malibu RS, and if this is the final non-SUV, non-pickup, or non-Corvette Chevy product, it's proper to show this Malibu a little love before it bites the dust. In truth, you could probably mistake the final Chevy sedan for a Honda Accord, Toyota Camry, or any of the Malibu's competition from a distance.

But as you get up close to the Malibu RS, tucked away as though GM wanted to hide the thing, you start picking up on the design cues that make the RS slightly more visually pleasing than your average grocery-getter sedan. The Malibu's done a bit of a see-saw motion between stylish and conservative when it comes to design language over nine generations and roughly 60 years. That said, it's nice to see a good blend of inoffensive styling and a few sporting touches on this lower mid-tier trim package, the RS.

As the Malibu in its ICE form and possibly just in its entirety prepares to come to a close, you'd hope there'd be a little extra flare or something "extra" in general about this 2023 example. Despite how deliberately it seems like Chevy tried to hide this Malibu, the optional Radiant Red Tintcoat color it shows up wearing in New York looks pretty sweet to our eyes. In an era long passed, 18-inch wheels would have been seen as gigantic. In 2023, these 18-inch alloy wheels with black accents are the smallest you can get on a GM sedan.

If anything, the proportions of this mid-tier family sedan are well-suited for sub-20-inch wheels, so there are no issues there. A funky rear spoiler might seem a little bit try-hard to some people, but with $450 optional premium paint, it honestly looks quite nice. Compared to something like a Toyota Camry or a Honda Accord, the Malibu has a distinctly American demeanor. It's the kind of design language that could very well go dodo when the Malibu line is sunset in 2025.

As for what's under the hood, things appear to be a little more "ordinary." Across the Malibu range, the only engine available is a 1.5-liter turbocharged inline-four mated to a not-all-that-sporty CVT transaxial. Then again, that's roughly the same configuration the Honda Accord is forced to run with its 11th generation. In the 2023 Malibu, this configuration is good for 160 horsepower and 184 lb-ft of torque and a 0-to-60 mph time in the 8.5-second range, depending on the conditions.

That level of performance is nothing to write home about. But let's be real, nobody who buys a 2023 Malibu is using it as a track day car. By most practical measures, the Malibu is actually a pretty decent mid-size sedan. With fuel economy figures of 27 MPG in the city and 35 on the highway, the Malibu's CVT does what it was programmed to do. That being to provide efficient fuel economy figures that rival vehicles much smaller than itself, not to give good performance.

For some context, this mid-sized Malibu only manages seven highway MPG fewer than the 2023 Mitsubishi Mirage, the car with the best non-hybrid fuel economy you can get in North America at the moment. Inside the cabin of this Malibu, you get the feeling everything's a little bit last decade in feel. The Malibu's center screen is not absolutely enormous like some other cars in its class. We did note the stark absence of a mechanical parking brake, as it was swapped out for an electronic unit back in 2022.

But there's something almost inviting about a simple, honest interior in a family car like the Malibu. Having only one screen for the driver's gauge cluster and a modest center navigation display helps keep the price of this family sedan nice and affordable. Besides, there are people out there who still prefer a nice traditional dashboard instead of feeling like they drive the Starship Enterprise. There's something endlessly commendable about a car that doesn't really try to act like it's got sporting or technological credentials it doesn't have.

To a certain degree, the 2023 Malibu doesn't need a boatload of technology to be valid. It just needs to be affordable enough to finance or to lease for 36 months so that working-class Americans don't mind buying it. With an MSRP of $26,000 for the Malibu RS before taxes and fees, things are just affordable enough to make for an awfully tempting buy. If we really are in the twilight years of Chevy sedans, we can at least say the Malibu went into the good night with honesty, integrity, and a liberal dose of heritage. One can only assume GM wanted to prove a point by shoving the Malibu way in the back of the Chevrolet booth this year. If that's the case, the symbolism is just a little too on-the-nose for our taste.