Sometimes in the desert that is the rental car lot Airport Detroit Metropolitan, the fate may smile on you. Most of the time, however, it does not. When I jumped out of the bus this past Monday, I was confronted by rows and rows of Altimas and Passats, each of them as a base and boring as the next.
I had to resign myself to a week to pay th e automotive prize for any sins I had committed recently when I noticed a bright, wet 2016 Camaro slowly rolls into the Emerald Aisle by Jacks , its best practice lean pimp and blasting XM Radio Hip-Hop pony car. I did not even wait for him to completely leave the car before positioning myself behind the rear bumper, ready to put my bags in the trunk. As I myself behind the wheel, I noticed that the Camaro had a huge five miles on the clock. It seemed that I would be the only responsible for a gentle break-in period.
Child, please.
Moments later, I was sending a video Slack of 60-100 MPH traction I-94 to my colleagues TTAC Panzer-like cabin of my V6 Camaro 1LT. "Do not drive like that in America dangerous?" Asked my friend on the other side of the curtain, Vojta Dobes. Well, its Detroit. The cops have better things to do than pull on speeding.
The 2016 Camaro has been widely praised by the automotive press as a "re velation" or crap like that. They slobbered everywhere the chance to drive the pre-production car at Belle Isle last year, and the comments of the production model at the beginning were largely along the lines of " The new Camaro is here to tell the Mustang out! OH YEAH !!!! "
Eh.
Mark Reuss, head honcho of all things GM America, was recorded in several outlets trumpeting his pride in the new 3.6- liter V6 engine, generating an impressive 335 horsepower. It certainly seems now, too. The Camaro is no doubt fast in a straight line (Chevrolet claims a 0-60 time of 5.1 seconds), and even with the tires out of the box, it turns bending through ramps from Detroit Metro. In fact, with a price sticker of $ 29,685 optioned, it is quite difficult to make any case at all for 95 percent of the general public to step up to the SS. The V6 is strong enough to satisfy the thirst of most power of buyers, it is definitely faster than almost any Camaro V8 you might have lusted more like a child.
I chose to drive the car in the direction of Sport, and the feedback I am of the flat-bottomed wheel in this mode is hard to hate. I even liked the automatic transmission, which detects inputs aggressive gases and switch to a "performance" mode immediately. If using pallets, go on the street, I just found leaving the car in "D" to be more than enough.
However, while this might be the All-New Mustang-Beating Whiz- Bang Camaro, it is still a Camaro, and he still loves doing things Camaro.
first of all, you really can not see a damn thing when you drive this car. The sight lines forward, back, and rear are dangerously ill. Its a good thing this pony has a lot of muscle, because the path-change was an adventure altogether. I found it best to just return my signal fire and crush the pedal to the floor. This way, if someone was next to me, Id probably be able to avoid them. I have to admit I got a little used to the limited visibility after a few hundred miles behind the wheel, but the lobsters have been known to sit in boiling water, too. Does not mean it is acceptable.
The rear camera on the Chevrolet MyLink screen resembles nothing so much as the images from the camera that I used to get on my camera phone Sony Ericsson T610 in 03. the waves blobs that appear on my screen could have been cars, trash cans, trees or children. I do not know.
The rear seat is completely and utterly useless. I put my 59 "self in the seat behind the driver seat, which was also set up for my 59" self, and my knees were buried deep in the back padding of poor conductor.
plastics on the dashboar d would be unacceptable in a Chevy Spark, much less a car that costs $ 30k. Keep in mind, this comes from a guy who drives every day a Fiesta ST. Everything inside is total crap. Theres just no other way to put it.
The heating and cooling system does not seem to provide much in the way of heating or cooling real. In theory, you can select a temperature. Does not seem to do much.
Getting in and out of the car was a chore. I could not imagine a day of start-and-stop shopping in this thing. My feet scraped door sills, my knees were knocking in doors, and there was no graceful way to enter or exit. You just sort of get in the car, and then you scramble out of it.
The entertainment system is horrible. Apple carplay integration was the worst Ive experienced yet, so I just stopped using it and spent Bluetooth stereo. The sound of the stereo base chain is similar to using a set of Skullcandy headphones with an iPhone 4S $ 10.
Oh, and did I mention that the pressure monitoring system Tire reported a complete failure within three miles? Because he did.
Got everything? Okay, good. Because, despite all these inconveniences, there is truth to the V6 Camaro that bothers me.
There is still a great car.
Well, scratch that. He is a great driver. I would never want to face day to day. But the combination of engine braking (my rental was just the standard brakes, but they were quite sufficient for the road), the suspension and the chassis is downright unbeatable at this price. Yes, this includes the Mustang V6. I would like the opportunity to drive one on track soon, because I think it would be a joy to drive this car around a road course. But at $ 30K, I sacrifice some performance and go with a hot hatch like the GTI or Focus ST that I could live with every day.
The good news for GM is that I don t think I am the target customer for this car. While many will no doubt be in the rental fleet, I think the same children who spent their employment checks on retail 3.7-liter Mustangs in 2011 will find this completely convincing and car much more fun to drive.
You hear, Mustang? You have been called, son!
Sorry, I can not. I tried
[Images: © 2016 Bark M./The Truth About Cars]
