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Grace and Utility, Happily Married
2004 Chevrolet Malibu Maxx

We arrived safely in the 2004 Malibu Maxx. Perhaps we arrived safely and without speeding tickets because of it.

The Maxx is a stealth machine. It is a station wagon that masquerades as an “extended sedan.” It is an “extended sedan” with a hatchback door designed to look like a traditional sedan’s trunk lid.

It is difficult to tell if it is intentionally or accidentally confused. All I know is that people speeding ahead of us and behind us got tickets, and we didn’t. Were we speeding? You be the judge.

The speed limit on the New Jersey Turnpike is 65 miles per hour. Traffic moving ahead of us was screaming along at 85 mph. We didn’t try to keep up with that flow. We just tried to stay out of the way of traffic bearing down on us and swerving around us at about 80 mph.

In that environment, we were being responsible. Driving the legal speed limit on the New Jersey Turnpike is an invitation to a crash. At 65 mph, you may as well be a stationary roadblock. I think law-enforcement people understand that, and that they are likely to give you a break if you are engaged in defensive speeding in a car that looks as innocent as the Maxx.

My wife, Mary Anne, agreed — sort of.

“This car has ‘family’ written all over it,” she said. “You put it together with your gray hair and you come up with a harmless old guy behind the wheel of a Chevrolet. Most policemen aren’t going to bother with that.”

I reminded her that we were driving at night, which meant no one could determine the tint of my hair.

She replied: “It glows in the dark.”

That was low. But I let it go. I dropped my wife off at our oldest daughter’s East Side apartment building and pulled into a neighboring garage, where an attendant remarked that he did not know Chevrolet had gone back to making station wagons.

I told him the Maxx was more of an, ahem, “extended sedan.” He smiled, said, “Yes, sir,” and asked how long I intended to keep my wagon in his place.

There was something about the way he said “sir” that sounded condescending. Young twit. What does he know? He’s so accustomed to parking BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Porsche cars, he wouldn’t know anything about a good, decent, ordinary, all-American automobile.

And that is what we have in the Maxx — a good, solid, affordable, roadworthy car that drives like a sedan but has the utility of a wagon. It is a true cross-country runner, assuming you are willing to run mostly at legal to slightly-higher-than-legal speeds.

Put another way, this Chevrolet isn’t anybody’s Corvette. It’s not supposed to be.

It is a front-wheel-drive car equipped with General Motors Corp.’s tried-and-true 3.5-liter, 200-horsepower V-6. There is nothing exciting about that engine, especially when it’s connected to a standard, electronically controlled, four -speed automatic transmission. There is discernible downshifting as you move to higher speeds. But those pauses between gear changes pass quickly enough.

It would have been nice to have this one with a five-speed or six-speed manual transmission; but the automatic is the only gearbox available at this writing.

Overall handling was excellent, which surprised me. Front-wheel-drive cars are sometimes skittish in curves and during quick lane changes. But there was none of that in the Maxx. It was as tight and right as the Saab 9-3 sedan, on whose platform it is built.

The test car was loaded with amenities, including a skylight over the rear seats, which didn’t make much sense to me. But Mary Anne praised that spiff for being “different.”

My favorite extra was the XM Satellite radio. You can choose a station and one kind of music, and listen to it uninterrupted for as long as you are on the road. I chose the station called “Frank’s Place,” which pla s lots of old Frank Sinatra ballads.

“Gray hair,” said Mary Anne.

I chose not to remind her that we are the same age.

Nuts & Bolts

Downside: The intermittent downshifting will prove disconcerting to throttle jockeys of any age. A bit more horsepower and a nice manual transmission would help. For marketing purposes, Chevrolet could call that one the Maxx-V in keeping with GM’s new practice of attaching a “V” to the names of some of its performance models.

Head-turning quotient: Just an old guy in a Chevrolet.

Ride, acceleration and handling: This car competes with the Honda Accord and Toyota Camry, its main rivals, in all categories. The Japanese mainliners now have a bona fide American rival.

Body style/layout: Front-engine, front-wheel-drive, five-door wagon. That’s right, “wagon.”

Engine/transmission: The Malibu Maxx is equipped with a 3.5-liter V-6 engine that develops 200 horsepower at 5,400 revolutions per minute and 220 foot-pounds of torque at 3,200 rpm. A four-speed automatic transmission is standard.

Capacities: There is seating for five people. Hatch cargo area can accommodate 22.8 cubic feet of luggage. The 60/40 split, folding rear seats can be lowered to handle large, bulky items. The Maxx can be equipped to tow up to 1,000 pounds, although Chevrolet doesn’t recommend it. Fuel capacity is 16.6 gallons of gasoline. Regular unleaded is recommended.

Mileage: We averaged 27 miles per gallon in mostly highway travel.

Safety: Traction control, anti-lock brakes, child safety-seat anchors, dual front bags.

Price: Base price for the LT is $24,100. Dealer’s invoice price is $22,052. Price as tested is $26,720, including $1,995 in options and a $625 destination charge.

Purse-strings note: It’s a buy. Watch those options, which can be costly. Compare with the Honda Accord and Toyota Camry.