Small cars from Chevrolet usually bring to mind either rental fleets of uninteresting transportation appliances, or of rebadged products from somewhere in Asia, such as Suzuki, Daewoo, etc. One exception to this norm was the excellent Chevy Prizm, essentially a Toyota Corolla manufactured by United Motors, a jointly owned GM/Toyota enterprise managed by Toyota to make Corollas and Prizms.

Then in 1995 came the Cavalier, a dull, unattractive, American-built car with no personality whatsoever.

The solid performer Cobalt accomplishes Chevy’s mission of producing a car that can take the compact car fight to the imports.

Well, Chevy must have finally recognized that drivers like interesting cars and has accepted the obvious — that its competitors are making cars that people want to buy — with refined power trains, quiet interiors, solid feeling, long lifespans, and are fun to drive. The Cobalt, built on the GM German Opel platform, is on that road. It isn’t there yet, but it’s definitely a huge step in the right direction.

Other reviews are not fantastic, yet this writer found the Cobalt to be a very pleasant and satisfying car. A good driving car capable of a little fun, a tight solid feeling, supple and resilient ride, and a smooth refined 2.2 liter, 145 hp, 16-valve engine with a responsive optional four-speed automatic transmission, or base five-speed manual for those who want to have fun.

After only 30 miles of test driving, this tester felt very comfortable with the car. The ride, performance, handling and electric power-assisted steering really impressed. Oh, and the $325 XM radio helped a lot. The oodles of stations, with country, folk, bluegrass, classical, light classical, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and not so much the 90s music filled this music basket. Don’t despair, there’s something there for everyone. The car is a literal boom box.

Although looks are subjective, various friends and acquaintances felt it had a clean, well-balanced exterior look in competitor import style. The interior layout is well done with easy-to-use $195 steering wheel, radio and cruise controls, instruments, power mirrors and logical climate controls. The interior furnishings do appear somewhat cheap and cold, although the silvery woven seat material may well be durable. The room in the back is about par for this size of car, similar to the Toyota Corolla or the Honda Civic. The Cobalt is some 600 pounds heavier than the Corolla or the Civic, although it is close to the same length and width. The fuel consumption, although not bad, is not as good as the competition. The fuel consumption is 25 city/34 highway for the five-speed manual transmission and 24 city/32 highway for the four-speed automatic.

For 2006 the Cobalt comes in four guises, a base coupe and four door versions for $13,625 each; LS Coupe and four-door versions for $15,920 each; a sporty LT sedan at $18,195; and a very fast 205 hp, 2.0 liter SS supercharged coupe at $21,430. The test car was the four-door LT sedan, which with the $850 automatic transmission and GM employee pricing could be had for just over $16,000. A moonroof is available for $725 and GM’s OnStar communication system is $695. The SS coupe is described by Car & Driver as “close to a home run,” and by Road & Track as “right in the neighborhood of other hot compacts like the Dodge SRT-4, Honda Civic.”

The warranty is 36 months or 36,000 miles, with a power train warranty of 60 months or 60,000 miles.

This solid performer accomplishes Chevy’s mission of producing a car that can take the compact car fight to the imports. Although many of the imports are now manufactured in the United States by American workers, if you have a twinge of feeling for the old “Big Three” American car companies, you might want to give some encouragement to GM and buy this very good car built by them in Lordstown, Ohio. Mossy Chevrolet has one just waiting to be test driven. I’m sure other Chevy dealers in town will be happy to have you test drive one. If you are in this market, try all cars in this category including this one, and then make up your mind.

Motoring since 1952, Austin Lynas has owned 55 cars and at one time raced mini-sedans in England. An aerospace engineer, he was instrumental in developing the anti-skid systems used in British military aircraft that preceded today’s ABS systems. Lynas can be reached by e-mail at austin@sandiegometro.com.