Chevrolet's UK Managing Director Andrew Higgins (very nice bloke, you'd like him) had a neat response when asked whether the Trax was a rebadged Vauxhall Mokka or or the Mokka was a rebadged Trax.Neither, he replied. The two General Motors brands were given the same basic material to deal with, but were free to use at as they wished. The two compact SUVs have been developed independently, though from common roots.Be that as it may, they are very similar indeed. Ignore the brand-specific "faces" (Chevrolet's being quite a bit more butch and American, even though the car is Korean and the design team is based in Australia) and you'll see that they are structurally the same car.Obviously, they have about the same interior dimensions, though Chevrolet's claim of 356 litres' luggage capacity with the rear seats in place is slightly behind Vauxhall's of 362 litres for the Mokka. Seats down, Chevrolet says 785 litres, Vauxhall says 1372, the difference being explained by measuring to the window line and to the roof respectively.Increasing the luggage space involves first tumbling forward the rear seat squabs, then folding down the split-folding back part. The snag here is that this can't be done without the front seats being pushed quite far forward and left there. The Trax can not therefore be used as a carrier of large loads and as transport for a large driver and front passenger at the same time.That issue aside, the Trax has a decent amount of room for front passengers, and lots of headroom for those in the rear. Knee space is limited back there, but there's plenty of space for feet under the front seats.The interior, which has a great many minor controls immediately familiar to any Vauxhall owner, is a bit on the cheap side, though that does fit in with Chevrolet being very much a budget brand. All the instruments apart from the revcounter are digital and have an early 1990s feel about them, but the graphics on the centrally-mounted MyLink 7" touchscreen are a good bit snazzier.Late last year, Vauxhall had to do a very fast and quite effective remedial job on the suspension of the Mokka, whose ride and handling were loudly criticised by the UK press after the European launch of the Opel version. Chevrolet has done a good job with the Trax, which rides splendidly and handles as well as it needs to on the open road. The steering is very smooth and easy to use in town without being overly light.The test car had the only diesel engine in the range (GM's excellent 1.4 petrol turbo and a less powerful 1.6 are also available) and although it performs well it has the same problem in this application that Tom Stewart found on the international press launch. To speak plainly, it's far too loud, even on a motorway cruise when in most modern diesels it would be difficult to tell what kind of fuel it was using.This problem was identified during pre-production, and steps were to be put into place to sort it out for showroom models. If those steps have been taken and this is the result, Chevrolet badly needs to find another solution.The only trim level which applies to the diesel is called LT (the 1.6 engine is also available with a more basic spec called LS). Standard equipment includes 18" alloy wheels, air-conditioning, privacy glass, roof rails, hill start assist, front foglights, rear distance sensors and parking camera, an MP3 input jack and Bluetooth connectivity. Automatic transmission and four-wheel drive are also available, but not at the same time.Update (16/12/13): All of the above was written on the basis of a short test drive. I've since lived with the Trax for a week and haven't changed my opinion of it to any great extent, though increased familiarity does mean that I'm not as happy with the handling as I was at first.It's not bad, but the Trax tends to lumber through corners which other compact SUVs would manage with more grace. I'd like it to feel a little sharper, though I concede that few owners will be concerned about this.The fuel economy display on the trip computer seems to be hilariously optimistic, over-reading by about 5mpg. Still, according to my measurements it should be easy to achieve more than 50mpg in a mixture of town and country motoring, even when wind and rain are doing their best to make you use more diesel.My remarks in the main article about noise levels still stand. The engine isn't painfully loud, but it's sufficiently clattery to remind me of one reason why people didn't want to buy diesels in the 1990s. There must be a way of keeping some of those decibels out of the passenger compartment.The large expanses of opaque metal between the rear doors and the tailgate are as much of a problem as they look. I blame these for the fact that, despite the help of a reversing camera, I still managed to scrape the rear bumper of the test car while trying to manoeuvre into a space in an admittedly badly-designed multistorey car park. Engine 1686cc, 4 cylinders Power 128bhp Transmission 6-speed manual Fuel/CO2 62.7mpg / 120g/km Acceleration 0-62mph: 9.6 seconds Top speed 116mph Price £18,945 Details correct at publication date
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