Over a year ago, we sampled a Korean-built, Euro-spec Cruze and declared it the car that must save GM. Since then we've been bombarded with rhetoric about how THIS global compact will be different, conceived from the start as a world-beater that will sell in the U.S. as an aspirational compact (oxymoron alert!). We've been assured the proof of the pudding would be in the tasting, and today the chefs have called us into the kitchen to lick some beaters as the chefs add the final pinches of tuning calibration and dashes of refinement before the Cruze comes out of the oven this September.

On hand for our taste test were two competitive benchmark vehicles, the COTY-winning Honda Civic and the Toyota Corolla (both 1.8-liters), and three 1.4-liter turbo Cruzes: a 2LT (upmarket trim on the chassis setup 70 percent of North American Cruzes will get), the fuel-economy-optimized Eco, and the top-shelf handling-optimized LTZ. Our drive was limited to a six-mile loop of mixed pavement surfaces on GM's Milford Proving Grounds ride-evaluation loop.

 

Before we share the savory sensations, let's recap some basics. First, this Cruze -- the fourth to launch worldwide -- shares most of its major hardware with its global doppelgangers. Anything on our Cruze can be retrofitted to any other global Cruze if market conditions dictate, but by and large ours will be the most highly refined. Differentiators vis-a-vis the least refined (Chinese-market) version include an acoustic-laminated windshield and an extensive package of sound-deadening materials (many of which are shared with the Euro-Cruze diesel, like expanding foam in body cavities, a mastic-sandwich firewall, five-layer headliner, triple door sealing, etc.)

Chassis-wise, the hardware is all global, but tuning is Euro-spec tweaked primarily to accommodate our all-season tires. Chevy's clever twist on the trailing-twist-beam rear suspension includes cast trailing arms welded to a cross-car tube with a center section crimped to a U-shape. Lateral location is via a sophisticated Watt's link. Various versions of the Delta architecture use tubes with varying wall thicknesses and different orientations of the U-shape. For example, to save weight, the Eco model does without the Watt's link and orients the U at a 65-degree angle. All other Watt's-equipped U.S. Cruzes have a 90-degree orientation (Ecos also get thinner-wall trailing-arm castings cribbed from the Volt). The chassis enjoys an unusual degree of isolation for the class, with hydraulic bushings on the front control arms and rear trailing arms, hydraulic engine mounts, and an isolated engine cradle.