The Chevrolet Aveo is a front-wheel-drive subcompact that General Motors has marketed since 2002. It was developed in South Korea as the Daewoo Kalos, and after GM took over Daewoo the same car was sold in about 120 countries under seven different brands, most successfully as the Chevrolet Aveo.
Chevrolet Aveo at a glance
| Production | 2002 to the present |
|---|---|
| Class | B-segment subcompact, five seats |
| Original name | Daewoo Kalos |
| Developer | Daewoo Motors, later GM Daewoo and GM Korea |
| First generation | T200 from 2002, T250 facelift from 2005 |
| Second generation | T300 from 2011, also sold as the Chevrolet Sonic |
| Body styles | Four-door sedan, five-door hatchback, three-door hatchback from 2005 |
| Design | Italdesign, from the 2000 Kalos Dream concept |
| Other badges | Holden, Pontiac, Suzuki, ZAZ, Ravon |
| Second generation end | October 2020 |
History of the Chevrolet Aveo
The Daewoo Kalos was introduced in September 2002 on an all-new platform as the replacement for the Daewoo Lanos. It was the first new model after General Motors took over the bankrupt Daewoo, although its development had begun before the collapse. The name comes from the Greek kalos, meaning beautiful or good, and the shape was drawn by Italdesign from the Kalos Dream concept shown at Paris in 2000. The car was sold from the start as a four-door sedan and a five-door hatchback, with a three-door hatchback added for some European markets in 2005.
Two different front ends were used on the first-generation car: the original 2002 design had headlamps separated from the amber turn-signal strip, while the European version of 2003 integrated the lamps into a unit rising from a V-shaped grille. The heavily facelifted sedan, known internally as the T250, appeared at Auto Shanghai in 2005 and was marketed in Korea as the Daewoo Gentra; it brought new instruments, more sound deadening and a drag coefficient cut from 0.348 to 0.326. The matching hatchback was shown as the Chevrolet Aveo at Frankfurt in 2007. In the United States the Aveo was advertised as the lowest-priced new car on the market.
The second generation, the T300, debuted at the 2010 Paris Motor Show on the Gamma II platform and went on sale in 2011. Development was led by GM Korea with Opel engineers and input from Holden and Chevrolet, and the design was led by Kim Tae Wan with Australian designer Ondrej Koromhaz, who described his aim as a ‘four-seat motorcycle’. The car was also sold as the Chevrolet Sonic in the Americas and several other markets, and production of this generation ended in October 2020. Since 2017 GM has sold the Chinese-built Chevrolet Sail sedan in Mexico and Central America as the Aveo, and a new generation from SAIC-GM-Wuling followed in 2023.
Design and features
- One car, seven brands: the same basic design was sold as a Chevrolet, Daewoo, Holden, Pontiac, Suzuki, ZAZ and Ravon.
- Two front ends: early cars had detached headlamps, European versions an integrated V-grille design.
- T250 facelift: new interior and a lower drag coefficient of 0.326.
- Sonic twin: the second generation was sold in the Americas under a different name.
Chevrolet Aveo versions
- T200 (2002): the original Kalos and Aveo in sedan and five-door form.
- T250 (2005): the facelifted sedan, and the hatchback from 2007.
- T300 (2011): the second generation, also sold as the Chevrolet Sonic.
- Aveo for Mexico (2017 onwards): a rebadged Chevrolet Sail, replaced by a new Chinese-built model in 2023.
The Aveo was the larger stablemate of the Chevrolet Spark and shared its market with the Chevrolet Lacetti above it. More cars are in the Chevrolet collection.
Sources
- Chevrolet Aveo, English Wikipedia: history, generations, design, markets
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