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With apologies to Lionel Ritchie, this crossover family hauler is easy like Sunday morning. Its welcoming demeanor begins the second you lay eyes on the pleasantly sculpted bodylines, with high beltlines and low-profile roof-rack rails, that almost belie the fact that this is a home-grown, made-in-the-USA transporter — and one that won’t make you feel sheepish to be seen...


View full sizePhoto by James Gaffney/The Times-Picayune

With apologies to Lionel Ritchie, this crossover family hauler is easy like Sunday morning. Its welcoming demeanor begins the second you lay eyes on the pleasantly sculpted bodylines, with high beltlines and low-profile roof-rack rails, that almost belie the fact that this is a home-grown, made-in-the-USA transporter — and one that won’t make you feel sheepish to be seen driving when dropping off the kids at that private school for which you’re paying through the nose.



Better still, it has seven- to eight-passenger seating, multiple cargo-space configurations thanks to easy-to-use, drop-down second- and third-row seats, and an attractively designed cabin quiet enough to hear a CD of Brahams at low volume.



Best of all, it’s not a minivan. It just happens to offer virtually the identical comfort, storage and convenience of one of those rolling behemoths yet without the aesthetic compromise required to actually own a refrigerator on wheels with sliding doors. No, the Traverse doesn’t boast second-row swiveling seats that face the third-row bench seat.



But isn’t it time to admit that it’s highly overrated to have squabbling siblings in the second and third rows facing each other on long road trips?



Despite the fact the Chevy Traverse is now in its fourth year of production, it’s been long overdue.



Trust us.



Legs and a puppy

It only takes an afternoon spent with young’uns crawling in and out of the Traverse to witness first-hand the blissful ease this vehicle affords harried parents, soccer moms, baseball dads — even an aunt and uncle with nowhere in particular to take their familial charges other than for snowballs and a lazy, daytime driving tour of the Warehouse District’s art galleries and the exteriors of hip wine bars.



“One day all of this will be your new playground,” I told them. “Until then, when we get home, we’ll all get dressed up in black and practice our looks of affected boredom.”



Front-cabin legroom is beyond reproach.



“Big enough for my legs and a puppy,” said my traveling companion and frequent test-drive guinea pig.



A simple tug of the strap on each of the second-row captain’s chairs pulls them forward for easy access to the third-row, 60/40 split bench seat. (An optional second-row, three-passenger bench seat is available to increase the Traverse’s hauling capacity to eight passengers.) If third-row bench seats in midsize, seven-passenger crossovers have lately become the butt of jokes (no pun intended), it’s only because many of them offer barely enough room even for small children.



Not so, the Traverse.



In fact, I sat in the third row with my 12-year-old great-nephew for the time it took for us to eat our snowballs and practice making rude hand-in-armpit noises without ever once feeling claustrophobic, much less uncomfortable. In fact, it’s the first third-row bench seat I’ve sat in that earns it name in spades.

View full sizePhoto by James Gaffney/The Times-Picayune

Later that day, when time came to load the back with considerably bulky cargo in the form of a sink/cabinet, boxes of floor tiles and a toilet for our new bathroom, the Traverse proved equally adaptable for the task. A simple pull of levers located on the backs of the seats made the third- and second-row seats collapse without much ado with the headrests automatically folding forward to help create in the Traverse a cargo area that is best in its class.



In fact, the Traverse’s cargo bravado forces even the Ford Explorer, Honda Pilot and To

Tags: Chevrolet, is-featured

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GYM DANDY: Chevy's Traverse versatile family hauler was originally published by New Orleans Auto Reviews: Chevrolet. Read the full story by clicking here.