Detroit Metro Airport. January. Twilight. The shuttle driver opened the door and the wind blasted in, glitter-bombing me with ice crystals. Dang. Fifteen degrees Fahrenheit and a 15-knot wind. If Frozen Hell had a baseline, that would be about it.  I stepped off the bus, bag in hand, a purgatorial figure on the parking tundra. Like millions before me—in Omaha, in Mobile, in Wichita—I trudged toward my allotted space, breath steaming, brooding, desperate to find meaning in the universe. Why? Why am I doing this to myself? I could have made a fortune farming shellfish.  And then I met my car. The 2016 Chevrolet Malibu, which the kind folks at General Motors had left for me to drive around Detroit. It was awkward, at first. I ordinarily wouldn’t get into something that frumpy and domestic, but it was so cold.  No one ever has anything good to say about rental cars. But the world needs good rental cars, and GM has a plausible business case to build them. Even though mid- and full-size sedan sales are tumbling against SUV and crossover sales, four-door sedans are still bedrock American motoring culture. And yes, without apology, a fair percentage of Malibus will find work in the fleet and livery trade.  What percentage? The short answer is as few as necessary. Percentage of fleet sales is a delicate topic, because it directly correlates to brand and vehicle residual value. This leaves car makers sometimes oddly sheepish about a car that’s a hit in fleet sales.  Why so shy? Cars like the Malibu are the motor pool’s most selfless players, manned by America’s quiet heroes: truant officers, chicken inspectors, soybean scientists with the Department of Agriculture, directors of stormwater operations. Vital technocrats, all.  As anyone who has ever rented a car knows, auto makers sell stripped down versions of their product for these mega-fleets. In the case of the Malibu, the stripper is either L ($23,500) or the LS trim ($23,945)—the consumer website isn’t consistent on trim level names—with a 1.5-liter, 160-hp four cylinder, six-speed auto, steel wheels and cloth seats, God help them.  Then, in traditional GM fashion, the Malibu’s trim ascends through four (or maybe six or seven?) levels. Our test car was in the penultimate trim (about $34,285) with two-tone upholstery, both tones gray, and “Blue Velvet Metallic” exterior paint.  This car ticks a lot of nice boxes: a purling, faultless 2.0-liter, 250-hp turbo four with an eight-speed transmission; 19-inch alloy wheels; 11 air bags; and a hopper full of connectivity features, including in-car Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Apple CarPlay, and satellite radio.  The 2LZ also has remote starting, heated seats and heated steering wheel, which there in the Michigan wind I would not have traded for a Lamborghini.  There is also the Premier trim ($35,650), which is all of the above plus leather upholstery. A Malibu Premier is the sort of graft you could expect if you were, say, the corrupt head of an English Department.  My point: The top-line Malibu is miles down the road from the renter. Our specimen was also fitted with GM’s driver’s “confidence” package, with functions like front automatic braking, adaptive cruise control, lane-keeping assistance and a pedestrian-detection system that is way better than just listening for the thump.  So here’s the problem: From the outside, little distinguishes the stripper version from the top-shelf trim. The wheels and tires are kind of a tell, if you know what to look for. Meanwhile, only the tippy top-level trim gets LED daytime running lights and LED taillamps. Conclusion: The tester costs a lot and looks, um, rental-y.  I cannot say I grasp the meaning of the Malibu’s styling. The front clip, which is the soft composite nose of the vehicle, hosts a veritable street fight of lines and shapes, an upper and lower grille, a bowtie badge, blingtastic running lights. It’s just madness. It looks like it’s wearing a Star Wars stormtrooper helmet.  The Malibu redesign has made the car significantly longer and bigger than before—note the huge back-seat space and nearly 16 cubic-foot trunk—but it’s clear the exterior designers didn’t know what to do with the extra dimension. The sheet metal lays slack and tensionless, and the converging character lines along the fuselage seem pilfered from Mercedes’s scrapbook.  Still, and while it might seem the most backward of compliments, GM’s Malibu team prioritized real-world use and users over optics. For example: One reason the Malibu’s silhouette is unsatisfying is that the scuttle, the leading edge of the windshield meeting the hood, is significantly lower than the previous car. That gives the Malibu excellent close-forward sightlines, but it sacrifices the suggestive, proud-hood effect of, for example, the Ford Fusion.  Chevrolet’s designers could have tented that hoodline but didn’t. Interesting.  The story is analogous inside. The big stuff, and the hard stuff, one has to say, are ably handled. Under way, the Malibu with the 2.0-liter turbo and 19-inch wheels is surprisingly light-footed, thanks in part to an aggressive diet that shed 300 pounds of curb weight, relative to the previous car. The turbo four spools up fast, builds torque quickly and runs like a dentist’s hand piece. It’s a great little engine, at least what you can hear of it; cabin quiet and isolation from the powertrain and road are key metrics for the Malibu.  Not surprisingly, given the breeding grounds, the Malibu’s front-drive chassis copes well with broken pavement and potholes, some of which are so big in Michigan they have their own names. The steering is light and agreeable. Overall the driver experience is one of minimum workload/involvement, and that’s OK.  I’m still having trouble with GM’s color and trim department. Though I like the layout of the cabin front quite a lot, the plastics and the metallic paint bright work still feels fleet, and the aesthetic immature. The inside of the Hyundai Genesis takes a stick to the Malibu.  Still, it’s warm. So warm.
Dan Neil sings the praises of the Chevy Malibu. But he’s not certain the upgraded trim packages are worth the price.