Ford brought back the Mustang – ok, so unlike GM they never actually killed it, but they did revive it in a cool looking retro form – so sooner or later Chevy had to bring back the Camaro. So, they did. Is it worth all the hype? I had the opportunity to check one out at an autocross last Sunday, take some rides, and almost got to drive it myself. More on that part later.
Like Ford did with the Mustang, Chevy went retro with the design of the Camaro, drawing more styling cues from the original model than anything else. It’s muscular. It’s mean. It looks particularly good in black, I think. I wasn’t a big fan of the looks at first. But as the day went on, the styling grew on me more and more. I think it’s a really cool looking car.
Upon closer inspection, it occurred to me that the great looks and awesome styling came at the great expense of practicality and visibility. Look at that high beltline, and the short windows. The chopped look is cool, but it’s horrible for actually seeing out of the car. The view to the front is OK. From the driver’s seat you’ve got that cool looking bulge in the middle of the hood in front of you to remind you that you’re driving a Camaro. But you can’t see the edges or corners of the car. This is not only a problem for dodging cones like in the picture, but for sliding into a parking space, or even staying in your own lane. Look out to the sides or the back, and visibility is downright awful. You know those medieval helmets with tiny little slits for eye holes? That’s sort of what it looks like.
Beyond the visibility, the interior space leaves a lot to be desired. Fans of Doctor Who know that the TARDIS, the time and space traveling machine, is dimensionally transcendental – meaning it’s bigger on the inside than on the outside. The Camaro, in contrast, must be dimensionally antitranscendental – it’s far smaller on the inside than on the outside. There is ample space in the front seats for driver and passenger. There has to be – it’s an American car. The back seats, well, you could fit your friends in it – if you hack their legs off at the knees. The trunk is somewhat spacious, but the lip of the trunk is so high that you’d work about as hard to put your cargo on the roof as in the trunk. No low lift-over height, that’s for sure.
But one doesn’t get a Camaro for practicality – one gets a Camaro for POWER! This one was a V6, but one with 300hp. No, it wasn’t a V8, but it had plenty of get up and go, and probably sucked down far fewer dead dinosaurs than the V8. It was also an automatic, but below the D setting it had an M setting. Pop it into M, and you were in automatic sport mode. And if you utilize the little + and – buttons on the back side of the steering wheel, it went into manual mode. I didn’t get to play with this too much, since I just cruised slowly around a parking lot, and the autocross course I was going to test the car on could be driven almost entirely in first gear.
Handling? Yeah, right – it’s a Camaro! It can’t go around corners! Or can it…? Believe it or not, this car can. Look under the back of the car, and you’ll find an independent rear suspension – a significant advantage over the Mustang, which still sports a stone age live axle. My rides around the autocross course, which focus on handling, left me rather impressed with the car’s handling. Granted, I didn’t expect much. I have a little seat time in a recent Mustang or two, and despite their pony car reputation they will do nothing but understeer. Not so with the Camaro – even the V6 automatic version would step the tail out powering out of a corner if traction control was turned off. This is a good thing. Power oversteer is what a Camaro is all about. But beyond that, it cornered fairly flat, and despite the basic all season tires it actually held its own. All in all, I was rather impressed with its handling, and wish I could have taken a crack at it myself.
OK, so you’re all wondering by now, why DIDN’T I test the car on an autocross course??? I was the second driver in the second of two heats. The two drivers in the first heat got four runs each. I rode on the first run of the second heat. Coming into the finish, the engine started knocking a little. Then knocking more. Then it stalled when we stopped. It didn’t want to restart, and when it did, it knocked pretty badly. The driver shut it down immediately and we pushed it off the course. The oil level, which was fine before runs began, was two quarts low. It sounded like the engine had spun a rod bearing. The car had just over 8600 miles on it. So, that’s why I didn’t get to actually drive it for myself.
A three letter acronym comes to mind: WTF?!?! It’s a Camaro! The car should be MADE to be driven hard! That’s what a car like that is for! Forget about finesse and precision – that’s what a Miata is for. A Camaro is all about brute strength, and that comes from its engine. So if an engine is driven hard and dies after 8000 miles, what good is the car in the first place?
It’s really too bad. I had my doubts about the new Camaro, but despite its shortcomings I was starting to gain a lot of respect for the car. I was really looking forward to the chance to experience it for myself. But the catastrophic engine failure in such a new car that had been driven hard, but not as hard as I drive my Miata at every autocross (and it keeps right on going every single time), made me decide I don’t want one.
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