By Malcolm Gunn, Special to The Windsor Star August 5, 2010

Raise your hand if you have never, ever — ever — driven a Chevy Impala. Think about it for a minute . . . maybe your dad owned one, or maybe even his dad, since the brand goes back more than five decades.

And if you’re a business traveller and/or suburbia dweller, chances are you’ve either owned or rented an Impala. It’s a car that most people rarely give second thought to, yet it’s engrained in the automotive landscape. As Chevy once pitched about its trucks, the Impala really is “like a rock.”

Literally scads of these ubiquitous sedans can be found unobtrusively going about their business without fuss or drama on nearly every city block, rural road and freeway in the land.

The Impala has been a Chevrolet and parent General Motors stalwart since 1958 when it was a trim option for the Bel Air coupe. And except for a couple of interruptions in the mid-’80s and ’90s, the brand survived. The multiplicity of duties that it has performed include police vehicle, taxi cab, rental-fleet workhorse and, between 1994 and ‘96, sinister-looking performance “SS” sedan.

The Impala’s current incarnation began for the 2006 model year when Chevrolet tweaked the sheetmetal and installed a trio of new powerplants, including a 303-horsepower V8 that formed part of the SS package. Despite the passage of time and the departure of the SS, the Impala continues to look decidedly attractive, in a conservative sort of way.

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It was the large “Powered by Ethanol” stickers on the flanks of my Impala tester that spurred me on, sending me on a mission to find the corn- based alternative fuel source and fulfill the carmaker’s bold claims. Domestic automakers like General Motors have been quick to provide “FlexFuel” vehicles, which can operate on E85, a blend of 85 per cent ethanol and 15 per cent gasoline - quicker off the mark, in fact, than the imports. GM alone claims to have put more than 2 million FlexFuel vehicles on the road so far. The thinking is, the more ethanol your vehicle can run on, the less fossil fuel it will require, ultimately reducing dependence (at least in the U.S.) on imported oil. Part of the U.S. enthusiasm for E85 doubtless lies in the fact that ethanol, which is a form of grain alcohol, is produced primarily from corn - a popular crop in North America, with all of its social and political implications. Read the rest of this entry »