Last week, I spent some time at Road America in Wisconsin testing cars on the track and on the streets around the nearby town of Elkhart Lake.
This was all part of the 2025 Midwest Automotive Media Association Spring Rally event. The event’s purpose is to give journalists the opportunity to get behind the wheel of various vehicles, all in one place. In addition to track laps and street drives, gathered media can go off-road and participate in an autocross.
I had the chance to get my grubby mitts on some cars I haven’t driven yet, and I also got a second look at others I’d driven recently. I wanted to share a few quick takes I gathered from my little sample drives.
I won’t hit every car I drove, but there are a select few I wanted to talk about.
So, I will be sprinkling these in over the next few days. First up: The 2025 Chevrolet Blazer EV SS
I was prepared to not like this little thing, since I’ve been harsh on Blazers of recent vintage. But 20 minutes of tooling around Wisconsin opened up my eyes a bit.
It starts with the power, of course. You can, if you access the Wide Open Watts system, get up to 615 horsepower and 650 lb-ft of torque from the front and rear electric motors.
As far as I could tell, the WOW (I see what they did there) system wasn’t on, but I still had plenty of get-up-and-go on tap. The drive route was a combo of twisty lakeside roads and open two-lane surrounded by cornfield, and the SS had power available both for corner exit and for getting up to speed quickly.
The other positive surprise was the handling. I didn’t expect an EV crossover with a 5,730-lb curb weight to be this spry. But spry it is. Turn-in is sharp and the SS tracks straight and true. I had a lot more fun than I planned.
All this while I was holding back due to wet roads and the presence of locals — this thing would be a hoot on dry pavement, especially in an area where few humans dwell.
On the ride side, the SS seemed sporty without being harsh, but the roads I was on were mostly smooth. I can’t speak to its ability to handle Chicago-sized potholes.
There were some things I didn’t like. The styling, inside and out, is a tad busy. The control layout was especially a bit overwhelming, and it was trickier to adjust the audio than I’d like. It also felt a tad cramped inside.
The $62K starting price is also going to water some eyes.
Still, the Blazer EV SS at least performs well enough to live up to the Super Sport moniker/tradition, even if some will dismiss any SS that is a crossover and/or electrified.
Yeah, I get it. I still miss the large Impala SS sedans, or even the bonkers front-drive Impala SS of the mid-Aughts (talk about torque steer), or the SS sedan from a few years back. But performance is performance, and this SS is, thankfully, more than a cynical exercise in marketing. Chevy could’ve slapped an SS on a Blazer EV with some sporty interior accents and called it a day, but they didn’t, and that’s all the better.
[Images: Chevrolet]
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