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My dad and I were planning on golfing this afternoon but due to the heavy rains in the morning, it left the ground soggy and we decided to cancel. With the entire afternoon open, we decided to head across the river to Moncton for some test driving. Our test driving sessions started a few years ago when we would go to car dealerships and take out the sportiest of cars for test drives… just for fun.

During the past couple of weeks, I’ve been doing a bit of car researching since I will hopefully have a full-time job within a month and I’m getting tired of taking the bus or walking everywhere. While looking through half a dozen different car manufacturer’s websites, I came across the Chevrolet Cobalt which recently took over from the Chevrolet Cavalier. The price is half-decent and it comes in an SS supercharged trim for the coupe with 205hp under the hood.

We arrived at the GM dealership and saw an entire row of Cobalts which were either the LS or LT trim and the dealer said they were out of the supercharged models. However, on the main lawn of the dealership there were two black supercharged Cobalts. After taking a look around and inside the car, we decided to take a test drive. Several minutes later, we were zipping up Wheeler Boulevard.

Overall, the car is much quieter than I would have expected, especially with a supercharged 205hp engine. It became very evident as I stepped on the gas that there was plenty of available power. The ride was much smoother than I was expecting. Usually, sporty cars shake all over the place when you hit a bump in the road but the Cobalt barely shuddered. Another common occurrence in a sports car is the lack of visibility and increased blind spots, but these weren’t noticed at all except for the view of the wing on the hood when looking through the rear-view mirror.

There were only two small problems with the Cobalt that immediately came to my attention. The interior seemed to have too much plastic and looked a bit cheap. The second problem dealt with the small opening for the trunk. Instead of allowing the rear window to lift up with the trunk to create a larger opening such as a hatchback, the Cobalt only uses the small bit of trunk behind the window for the opening. However, it still shouldn’t be too much of a problem since the opening can still handle a large suitcase.

The price for the 2006 Cobalt SS Supercharged coupe was $28,000 as tested. GM Canada has a graduate program where they will pay the first two month lease or finance payments (up to $600/month) for recent graduates of an accredited university. That makes the Cobalt even more attractive since it’s almost like driving it for “free” for the first two months.

After leaving the GM dealership, we made stops at the Acura, Honda, and Audi/VW dealerships before calling it a day. Other cars on my list are the Acura RSX, Honda Civic, and Mazda6 Sport. Hopefully we’ll be test driving these cars in the upcoming weeks.