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2010 Camaro SS: Subtle it's not

StarAngel

Well-Known Member
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The 2010 Camaro SS is a shortened version of Australia's Holden Monaro/Pontiac G8, but the retro styling is patterned on the classic '69 Camaro SS.The Camaro SS's 6.2-liter V8 delivers raw power and its retro styling is spot on.


http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-neil17-2009apr17,0,5412852.column

Dan Neil
April 17, 2009

Despite some published reports, the 2010 Camaro SS is not really what you'd call a sports car, unless you tend to shave with a chain saw or sign your name with a piece of burning timber or make scrambled eggs by dropping a piano on a chicken. The consonant quality of this car, from the moment you turn the key to the moment you gratefully leave it in the chiropractor's parking lot, is a wanton and cheerful disregard for finesse and delicacy.

This is exactly right.

You have to understand, after four decades in the market, the Camaro nameplate stands for something: 40-ounce beers, mullet hairdos, barbed-wire tattoos, that trick where you put cigarettes out on your tongue. If you ever stole cable TV from your neighbor, own more than two stuffed deer heads or have ever confused your girlfriend's birth-control pills for Skittles, you might be a Camaro prospect.

Oh, please, don't even start with accusations of cultural stereotyping. I'm from North Carolina. A telephone pole with a Camaro wrapped around it might as well be the state tree.

While it would have been easy for Chevrolet to build a sleek, high-revving sport coupe, something to thrust-and-parry with the Nissan 370Z or Mazda RX-8, that would not honor the Camaro's rightful heritage as the Molly Hatchet of sport coupes. And so the company went the other direction: a big lummox of a car powered by thudding 6.2-liter pushrod V8, an engine that is to acceleration what dynamite is to fishing. This detuned version of the Corvette LS3 engine produces 420 pound-feet of torque at 4,600 rpm, which -- channeled through the Tremec TR6060 six-speed manual transmission -- is quite capable of making an evil stinking unholy mess of the rear 20-inch Pirelli P-Zero radials.

Now, given that I live in California and I was fearful of the Air Resources Board's black helicopters, I never dumped the clutch with the engine at full honk and the traction control disabled. I am assured by one of my colleagues, however, that the car will leave 50 feet of smoldering, bubbling brimstone on the pavement, burnout tracks so lurid that my colleague actually went out and bought gray spray paint to cover it up. It didn't help.

The SS is equipped with a launch control function, built into the traction and stability control's Competitive Driving Mode. The system automatically manages wheel spin in first gear, so there's less smoke and more hooked-up thrust. All you have to do is romp the throttle and hang on. Zero-to-60-mph acceleration comes in at 4.6 seconds; from there it's all gear-grabbing and clutch-humping until the car crosses the quarter-mile stripe in fourth gear at 13 seconds flat. So it's respectably quick. Indeed, the SS zips down the speedway on pace with the Subaru WRX STi. The difference: The Subie sounds like an RC airplane and the Camaro sounds like a gasoline-powered Gatling gun.

Here's an odd thing, though. The SS's is a thrumming, slow-revving engine, with a redline barely at 6,600 rpm (actually, it seems the rev-limiter is set artificially low in the interests of durability). Meanwhile, the fifth- and sixth-gear ratios are way into overdrive range (sixth is a super-tall 0.57). The result is that the car starts to feel soft and leisurely above 100 mph or so. Ahem. At least that's what my colleague tells me.

To create this four-wheeled affront to decency, GM turned, inevitably, to that island of hardened miscreants, Australia. The new Camaro is a shortened version of the Holden Monaro/Pontiac G8 (Holden is a GM subsidiary down under). The Camaro shares the Holden/Pontiac's MacPherson Strut front suspension and multilink rear, abetted by anti-roll bars, flinty damper settings and slamming wheels and tires. All of that makes the Camaro SS a very capable courser, but as I said, it's certainly no lithe and nimble sports car. You can blame the nearly 3,900-pound curb weight. The speed-variable power steering is light and a little watery on center, firming up as you turn in. However, the brakes -- 14-inch Brembos on the front -- certainly git 'er done.

Now for some shopkeeping. The Camaro comes in three flavors: LS, LT and the SS. The LS and LT come with what most would consider a proper modern engine: a direct-injection, dual-overhead cam, 3.6-liter V6 with variable valve timing. This engine provides a herd of ponies itself -- 304 at 6,400 rpm -- and can be had with a six-speed manual or six-speed automatic with manual-shift mode. The SS is also available with a manual or auto. The auto-equipped SS employs a detuned version of the pushrod V8, good for 400 hp; the SS with manual gets the LS3 and all 422 snot-flinging horsies.

Remarkably, wonderfully, all Camaros get limited-slip differentials in their ring-and-pinion bits.

With the arrival of the new retro-modern Camaro, the Class Reunion of 1969 Pony Cars is complete. Last year Dodge brought out its Challenger and Ford re-birthed the Mustang, with vastly improved interior and recalibrated suspension. Of these three cars, the Mustang is by far the best driving and handling car, even if it isn't the fastest (a review of the Shelby GT500 is coming soon). I'd also note that the Mustang is the only properly sized pony car of the three; the Challenger and the Camaro are retro-themed re-skins of big, gallingly heavy sedans.

Yet, in terms of styling, of capturing the ineffable cues of the classic -- in this case the 1969 Camaro SS -- Chevrolet and lead designer Sang Yup Lee absolutely knocked it out of the park. Mean and coldly futuristic, with a cannibal's smile and superhero's visor for a windshield, the Camaro SS is pitch-perfect for the class and segment.

Strange visitor from the Planet Petroleum, the Camaro will doubtless strike many as exactly the wrong kind of car that GM needs to be building. Well, it wasn't when it was green-lighted back in 2006. Nonetheless, the car has a profoundly anachronistic feel to it. The Camaro certainly can't deflect the avalanche of bad news for the parent company back in Detroit.

The Camaro reminds me of the joke: What are a redneck's last words?
"Hey, y'all, watch this!"

LOL At first when I started reading this I was worried that the Camys had something on us but then (as I highlighted) got my best laugh of them all.

And that Redneck joke is soooooo Spot on!!
 

Fighting Sailor

San Angelo TX
Yeah Andy asked the owner if he was the one who got beat at barona... Y'all shoulda seen the guys face! Classic!
My buddy Walt has been waiting 2 years for his, I see a grudge match in my future....
 

IgottaV8

Wickedstangs Road Racing Team
Staff member
Moderator
Board Member
me too, come on 347, time to beat on some SS's.
 

0ne_sik_notch

Well-Known Member
i thought the gto was based on the holden in fact if you google holden a car that looks like the gto comes up
 

ears

Well-Known Member
holdin is the brand like pontiac or ford!! monaro is the goat model. they have a few cars out there you should look at their site,,, its kinda cool the cars they have!!! at one point i wanted a monaro so bad i was gonna have one imported then i came to my senses and decided that that would be a very very bad idea!!!
 

Gibs

Well-Known Member
Staff member
Global Moderator
If you are running a stock GT, or even lightly modded GT, you may have trouble with a stock SS......They are running about the same 1/8th times as a stock GT will...

I still dont like them.
 

Gibs

Well-Known Member
Staff member
Global Moderator
Ears, yes pushrod motors.......

My TBSS has the LS2 and it is a pushrod motor...... LS series is still that way.
 

ears

Well-Known Member
hmmmm thats kinda wierd,,,,, obviously im wrong but i had thought that most companies had already completely phased out the push rod motors!!! i didnt know that, i guess you learn something new every day!!
 

kakarote

Well-Known Member
the G.T.O was based on the holden morono. Why is it none of those NICE car's come here. Wonder what a few of those cars would do for the buying public?:party:
 

Fighting Sailor

San Angelo TX
Let see. A Toyota (Japanese) engine in a car whose company is owned by the government who is selling out the company to China. So what part of this car is left that is American again????? :nonono::nonono:

The word Obamanation ring any bells? The last liberal administration sold off alot of our valuable assets (panama canal, long beach Naval station) to the comunists. I guess this administration wants to finish the job....
 

ears

Well-Known Member
kakorate,,, to get a holden here, your lookin at roughly 60 thousand dollars!!!! you can do it,,,, your just gonna pay out the ass for it!!!
 

Lordgufi

Well-Known Member
the Manaro, camaro, GTO all share the same body setup

All GM did was... little to say AGAIN was rebody another car with a bigger engine and a new tune.

its just like when the Eclipse, Talon and Laser all lived... same car different badges
 
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