PORT ELIZABETH, South Africa — The bowtie is back with a bang. In only a five-year period since General Motors returned to South Africa in 2003, 21 years after it left the country, Chevrolet has overtaken Opel as GM South Africa's biggest-selling car brand. Now Chevy is looking ahead to the launch of the new Cruze, and then the second-generation Aveo in 2010, to cement its standing in South Africa.At the beginning of this millennium, you could play spot-the-Chevrolet in South Africa and sometimes go days without seeing one. And when you did, chances were it was a 20-plus-years-old classic or one of the small handful of new models brought in by the local importer.Chevrolet was GM's core brand here from the time assembly operations started in 1926, and the marque's mass appeal was underlined in a popular 1970s song that may sound familiar to Americans: 'Braaivleis, rugby, sunny skies and Chevrolet' (braaivleis being the Afrikaans word for barbecue). In 1982, GM quit the country because of its apartheid policy, and in the ensuing two decades a local company called Delta Motor Corporation held the reins, with Opel and Isuzu as its main brands.Chevrolet's rebirth in SA mirrors what's happening throughout the LAAM region (Latin America, Africa and the Middle East) where the General's riding high — quite a contrast to the gloomy picture back in North America, where sales plummeted 16.5 percent in the first half of 2008. In LAAM, GM sold 19 percent more vehicles over the same period, with Chevrolet accounting for 89 percent of them.The African continent's been GM's biggest single growth area, with annual volumes tripling to 180,000 units since 2002. In South Africa, the compact Chevrolet Aveo has contributed generously to the bowtie's growth with nearly 20,000 units sold since its debut in 2003. The car, built by GM's South Korean division, was last month given a nip and a tuck to see it through until 2010 when the second-generation Aveo arrives.New Chevrolet models have come into South Africa thick and fast in the past five years, with the Aveo and Spark covering the lower end of the market and the Optra taking care of the compact sedan sector, while the recently launched Captiva has rapidly made a name for itself in the SUV league.At the top end of the scale, Chevrolet offers a V8 muscle car in the form of the Australia-sourced Lumina sedan and Ute pickup. They will be joined soon by the Camaro and soon-to-be-launched Cruze.The Cruze, scheduled to debut at next month's 2008 Paris Auto Show, arrives in South Africa late next year to take on the Toyota Corolla in this country's hotly contested compact-sedan market.The Camaro, a muscle car in the grand old American tradition, returns with a fire-breathing 6.0-liter V8 engine with more than 400 horsepower under the hood. Unfortunately the local levy will be dry as far as the ultimate Chevy, the 640-hp Corvette ZR1, is concerned. There aren't any plans to build it in right-hand drive.What this means to you: Here in South Africa, General Motors rides high on the strength of popular Chevy products. — Denis Droppa, Correspondent