2019 Chevrolet Malibu RS First Drive Review | New in all the wrong ways

Considering that nearly every story we write these days starts with something like, "As crossovers continue to crush sedans in sales ...," it'd be obtuse to ignore the very real headwinds that face the 2019 Chevy Malibu. While it debuted in 2015 as a 2016 model, the Malibu felt a bit old when it was brand new. A few years later, this refreshed Malibu — and the RS trim level, specifically, which is new to the nameplate — seems like it's fresh out of an alternate universe, where sedan sales were healthy enough to support a bunch of backmarkers.