It amazes me that, when launching a new vehicle, certain manufacturers anticipate that said vehicle will only be bought by men. Sure, there are some “feminine” vehicles that attract mostly women and there are “masculine” vehicles that largely attract men, but few are solely bought by one or the other sex. So it’s rather shortsighted of manufacturers not to recognise female spending power.
Ironically, a manufacturer of rather masculine vehicles, General Motors (GM), is making a point of acknowledging girl power with the launch of the Chevrolet Captiva. Using the blockbuster movie Mr & Mrs Smith as a premise, GM went to great lengths to accentuate the versatility and over all appeal of its latest SUV.
While Mr & Mrs Smith was mainstream action fodder, it was nonetheless entertaining for the simple reason that we got to watch Angelina Jolie kick Brad Pitt’s perfect butt all over the silver screen. But, I digress.
The Captiva launch took place at the Gerotek testing ground near Pretoria, where we put the vehicle through its paces on the high-speed oval, an offroad course and a dynamic driving track to ascertain whether GM had, in fact, created a vehicle that was as appealing to Mr Smith as it was to Mrs Smith. I’d say that Chevrolet has succeeded in creating an SUV that does the desired amount of bundu-bashing yet is also as comfortable as a sedan.
The Captiva is a soft-roader so it has a soft look, but is not lacking in muscular bulges where they are needed. The flared wheel arches, the deep lines in the bonnet and the nudge bar give it an understated masculine persona, which is easy on the eye.
On the high-speed oval the Captiva was impressively comfortable at 160kph and on the dynamic driving track it proved that its on-road manners are formidable. The off-road section put to the test features such as Hill Descent, which showed that this soft-roader can tackle middleweight obstacles with ease. Sloshing through mud pits was child’s play.
There is one diesel and two petrol engines in the range, which come in front-wheel and all-wheel drive derivatives and all models are seven-seater.
Among the standard features are dual and side airbags, seat belt pre-tensioners and an MP3-compatible CD player. Optional extras include cruise control, rear park assist and Hill Descent Control.
The Captiva range starts at R244 300 for the 2,4-litre manual petrol and ends with the 3,2-litre five-speed auto at R329 900.