Across America in a 2008 Chevrolet Malibu: The 11,306-mile test

Chevy's new Malibu is a hit with auto-scribblers. We insiders are all a-quiver over its sleek and spare styling, engine and transmission stats, posh interior trim, and all the other attributes that Chevy's P.R. machine has PowerPointed at us. But how's it going to connect with regular folks who don't live in Detroit or L.A.? Does this one really have what it takes to lure a once-bitten and twice-shy buying public? To find out, we'll climb aboard this latest media darling and get out of our element. To "see the USA in [our] Chevrolet."

The world has changed a lot since Dinah Shore first warbled that lyric into living rooms on NBC's "The Dinah Shore Chevy Show" in the late 1950s. Chevy and its domestic rivals took their collective eye off the ball, ceding the mainstream-sedan business to Asia. We've been promised durable, competitive, stylish Cam/cord rivals before and been disappointed.

To test the Malibu's mettle and gauge public opinion well outside our industry strongholds, we've devised a torture test of long days passing through extremes of temperature, weather, demographic, and psychographic temperament. By visiting the extreme north, east, south, and west points of the Lower 48 and passing through its geographic center, our journey crisscrosses 33 states representing 80 percent of America's population. At each fuel or food stop, we ask folks what they think of Chevy in general and our (increasingly filthy) Malibu in particular. We snap photos in front of Roadside America attractions to see if our subject looks comfortable in widely disparate surroundings. And at the end of the road, we order it to the showers and immediately send a near-twin out onto the field for a straight-up comparison test against its chief rivals.

So take one last pit stop, strap in, and let's road-trip.