| Don Plumley |
04-19-2009 10:11 PM |
Interesting article on the Camaro in the Times today:
Quote:
April 19, 2009
Behind the Wheel | Chevrolet Camaro
Fashionably Late to the ’60s Revival
By LAWRENCE ULRICH
NEARLY five million Camaros, produced over 35 years, are bound to produce some stories. This one is mine:
In Detroit around 1980, my friend Donnie and I borrowed his dad’s hopped-up Camaro from the early 1970s. We were about 17, so you can guess the rest. Donnie lost control and bored straight into a parked car on Gratiot Avenue, but I never looked up because I was biting into a Taco Bell Burrito Supreme. My head flew through the windshield, but aside from some decorative glass in my forehead, I was unscathed.
I stumbled from the car, and a woman on the sidewalk screamed in horror. What she assumed were my leaking brains was in fact the exploded burrito — a primitive air bag? — whose refried shrapnel also covered every part of the car’s interior.
That’s the kind of story you won’t hear from Prius owners. And it captures the Camaro’s bad-boy attitude without cheap references to mullets, 7-Eleven parking lots and Def Leppard.
The Camaro, a working-class hero of the 1967-2002 model years — a run that included forgettable cars as well — is back. Its arrival completes a blessed baby boomer trinity of so-called pony cars, after reintroductions of the retro Ford Mustang and Dodge Challenger.
With the old pony-car wars suddenly revived, even people who love fast cars can reasonably ask why. Those who dial 911 at the sound of screeching tires are even more upset: how, they ask, can Detroit be turning out fluff when its survival is at stake? The answer is that sports cars and sexy coupes still have a role to play, no matter the price of gas or the blood on Detroit’s balance sheets.
For its part, General Motors has no illusions that the Camaro is a one-man cavalry — or that it will sell anything like 282,571 Camaros in a year, as it did in 1979. Yet in this depressed market, the reborn Camaro is a feel-good story, an attention-getter that can bring people into Chevy showrooms for a look. If they end up buying a family Malibu instead, the Camaro will have done its job.
Those who reflexively bash G.M. at every turn have already attacked the car as a guzzling throwback. But attitude aside, there’s no knuckle-dragging with this Camaro. The coupe is built on a modern sport sedan platform, a modified offshoot of the Holden Commodore that G.M. builds in Australia (and is also the basis for the tragically overlooked, underestimated Pontiac G8 sedan).
The V-6 in the reasonably priced ($22,995) base model is the type you’d find in a $45,000 Infiniti, Mercedes or, well, a Cadillac: shared with models like the Caddy CTS, this 3.6-liter overhead-cam engine combines fuel-saving direct injection and a 6-speed automatic to produce 304 horsepower with a stellar highway economy rating of 29 m.p.g. That’s better highway mileage than you will get from a slew of less powerful V-6 models, including not just the Mustang and the Challenger but the Toyota Camry sedan and the Honda Accord coupe.
Nice price, nice motor. For those who want to save money and fuel, or be seen in the Camaro’s hunky embrace, or reach 60 m.p.h. in a solid 6.1 seconds, the V-6 will do the trick. But trust me on this: to better stimulate the economy, your eardrums and yourself, you really want the V-8. Specifically, the glorious 6.2-liter V-8 borrowed from the Corvette, with 426 horsepower when paired with a 6-speed manual transmission, or 400 horsepower for the version mated to a 6-speed automatic — and that can also run on 4 cylinders to save gas.
Now that’s a muscle car.
Where Ford and especially Dodge photocopied their old models and called it a day, the Camaro addresses the past more obliquely. The result is unmistakably a Camaro, yet it’s also a bold, 21st-century design that may age better than its more literal rivals. Befitting a car that scored the Bumblebee role in the “Transformers” movies, there’s some cartoonish adornment, including the nonfunctioning hood scoop on the V-8 model and fake brake vents along the side. But during my week of testing, even Audi and Porsche owners gushed over the Camaro’s looks — high praise for a Chevy.
The view from inside is less enticing. Every element seems to create another blind spot: the chopped roof and gun-turret windows; the chin-high windowsills, hood and dashboard; roof pillars the size of bridge supports. The effect is like sitting in a pickle barrel and peering through the slats. The back seat is claustrophobic even by muscle-car standards; I’m 5-foot-11, and my head was jammed into the headliner.
And assemble the automotive firing squad for the designers who placed a crude seatback release behind the backrests. Not only that, but sliding the entire seat requires you to stretch to reach another release below the front of the cushion. Rear passengers are essentially trapped until someone lets them out.
In fact, an operative word for the interior might be “awkward,” both visually and ergonomically. Half-hearted nods to the retro look — including cramped, hard-to-read gauges whose cheesy fonts recall an ’80s arcade game — don’t mesh with modern, well-executed elements like the audio controls and Audi-style steering wheel buttons.
The front seats are decidedly average, including side bolsters so smushy they feel like an inflatable kiddie pool. And the limbo-low driving position will require many drivers to crank the seats up higher than they would prefer, just to see out the windshield.
I’ll add here that I was driving pre-production models — not cars ready to be sold to the public. Yet the vexing design elements are all set in stone for the showroom versions. Unfortunately, the showrooms will be missing a Camaro convertible, which has been put on hold because of G.M.’s financial troubles.
Still, the Camaro’s killer looks and easy-to-extract performance let you overlook many flaws. The car’s chassis is rock solid and the ride surprisingly decent, even on the massive optional 20-inch tires. There’s remarkably little body roll in fast turns, and the brakes are tremendous — both the standard four-wheel discs and the stronger, optional Brembo racing brakes.
Make no mistake, the V-6 whips the base 6-cylinder Mustang and Challenger in both power and sophistication. Yet it still doesn’t feel like a muscle-car motor. With little low-end torque, there’s no hold-on-tight sensation when you floor the gas. And while the engine will spin to 7,000 r.p.m., keeping the revs high is a strange way to drive a Camaro.
Also, driving enthusiasts beware: the V-6 is bedeviled by numb, slack steering that has too much power assist and too little feel for the road.
With its huge 18-, 19- or 20-inch tires, the Camaro grips like Rod Blagojevich at a $1,000-a-plate fundraiser. But the V-6 finds G.M. again confusing good grip with good handling, as is the case with models like the Pontiac Solstice
As cornering forces build, the Camaro’s steering doesn’t load up in a linear, predictable fashion. You learn to trust how securely the V-6 tracks through turns, but it doesn’t have the thrust or feedback that encourages a driver to attack the corners. Most annoyingly, the top V-6 model, the RS, comes only with 20-inch wheels, far too large for the power on tap. I’d gladly trade 20 percent of the grip for 20 percent more steering feel.
The 8-cylinder SS solves those issues at a still-reasonable base price: $30,995. At 3,900 pounds, the SS won’t be confused with a lightweight sports car. But compared with the V-6, the reworked steering feels firm but sensitive, reminiscent of the G8 GXP.
With 73 percent more displacement and nearly 150 extra pound-feet of torque (a total of 420 with the manual), the V-8 is better matched to the available traction. Blast out of a low-speed turn and the SS can kick out its tail with requisite sound and fury, especially with the stability control set to competition mode.
The SS lops nearly 1.5 seconds off the time it takes the 6-cylinder to reach 60 m.p.h., which the V-8 accomplishes in 4.7 seconds. That stoplight talent easily outshines the 315-horse $30,000 Ford Mustang GT and is neck-and-neck with the 425-horse Dodge Challenger SRT8.
If the Camaro feels a tad less fire-breathing than that $40,000 Challenger, it also costs about $8,000 less, making it the clear bang-for-the-buck winner.
Both models offer a smooth-acting 6-speed automatic with manual-shift buttons on the steering wheel. Six-cylinder models offer an Aisin 6-speed manual, while the SS upgrades to a Tremec 6-speed whose chunky, mechanical engagement is just about perfect.
The overriding question is whether the Camaro, as the latest arrival, can be the life of the muscle car party. How long that party will last before the regulators bust it up — as they did in the ’70s — is the other sticky issue.
Social arguments aside, the Camaro is back. And considering G.M.’s struggles, it’s hard to fault the Camaro’s fans if they want to pull out the old photo albums and celebrate this handsome addition to the family.
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