The full-size Chevrolet Impala will gain some attitude this summer with the addition of a Midnight Edition package (Image: General Motors)
If everyday Impalas aren’t enough to lure you into a Chevy dealership, GM’s planning on adding extra bait to the line.
This summer, a Midnight Edition of the full-size sedan will appear on dealers lots (under the cover of darkness, no doubt), offering shimmering Jet Black paint and blacked out 19-inch wheels, grille, and Chevy bow ties both front and back.
The sinister sedan also receives sport pedals and a low-profile deck lid spoiler.
If big and black is your style, the Midnight Edition package can be added to all Impalas, minus the base LS trim level. That means the sensibly spacious four-cylinder Impala of your dreams doesn’t have to be so… unintimidating.
The Midnight Edition package targets all trim levels except the base LS. Will it boost slagging sales? (Image: General Motors)
Midnight Edition Impalas will retail as 2016 models, though GM says a small number of 2015 four-banger versions will find their way off the line.
Reading between the lines, Chevrolet is obviously brainstorming ways to get more buyers into a new Impala, which has been falling steadily in sales since the model’s lofty peak in the mid-2000s.
Fleet sales accounted for a large number of those earlier sales, but even with a consumer-oriented redesign for 2014 (a quite attractive one, in my opinion), sales are a fraction of what they were a decade ago.
In the U.S., 140,280 Impalas were sold in 2014, down from over 311,000 in 2007. In Canada, just 3,406 Impalas rolled off dealers lots in 2014, compared to over 21,000 in 2006.
Chevy is clearly hoping new buyers will follow this tricked-out Impala into the dark, before the model fades to black.
Links:
http://www.goodcarbadcar.net/2011/01/chevrolet-impala-sales-figures.html