The 2015 SS Camaro convertible features a 6.2L V8 engine, offering up to 426 horsepower.
Married couple in their “sensational sixties” talk about today’s hottest, newest cars—and still manage to go to bed without getting angry at night.
First impressions?
JOHN: Can you say NASCAR? Varoom, varoom! Talledega? Jeff Gordon? I am not even a NASCAR guy, but the low, sleek styling of the Camaro had me strapped in, talking to my crew chief, holding the curves at really high speeds—on the racetrack in my mind. For some reason, the words ‘moonshiners’ and ‘revenuers’ came to my mind too, but that is probably from my youth in East Tennessee. Good looking car!!!
LAURIE: My first impression was—Oh, no! Bet Johnny’s channeling James Dean! Sure enough, he slicks back his hair and I overhear him muttering, “Where’s my black leather jacket.” Geez, he hasn’t had a black leather jacket in a quarter-century!
I imagine this car took you back to your youth…
JOHN: I admit there was some salivating to the point of drooling when I got the “feel” for this American muscle car baby. The Camaro SS is low, wide, and aerodynamic, with a long hood complete with hood scoop. When you look at it, you think ‘bad’, ‘fast’ and ‘dynamic’—the very essence of a muscle car.
LAURIE: Not for me. The Camaro is Johnny’s era.
JOHN: My “era”? What am I from, another century? Oh, wait, I am. My ‘era’ was really in the 60’s when ‘muscle cars’ were ‘the thing’. I am sure I attract a lot of ‘gear heads’ to our column because at my age, I am more interested in safety and comfort than raw power and drag racing efficiency. BUT in the 60’s, my older brother bought a Pontiac GT just before the GTO’s came out and became the household authority on ‘muscle cars’. He still has that car fully restored and sitting in his garage. There was a real love affair with cars in those days and lots of ‘young people’ then were ‘into’ their cars. Chevrolet came out with the SS’s, first in the Chevelle, then the Monte Carlo, and then the Impala, if I remember correctly. My generation had the Plymouth Road Runner and the Duster. I remember the Oldsmobile 442 and the Dodge Charger, I think. They were big, mostly engine, sucked down gas at .35 cents a gallon, and I am pretty sure they were without seat belts, and certainly there was no law about seat belts; and there were certainly no airbags. We didn’t realize we were taking our life in our hands every time we floored one on a long straight away, passing the bus and beating the tractor trailer headed our way. We were young and stupid, and thank God, most of us lived to be old, though not much smarter. They were good times. How does the Camaro rate as a “muscle car”?
JOHN: The speed limit is 25—35 mph around Pinehurst. My ‘test’ drive amounted to driving around the traffic circle at 30 mph and when I could, I’d tell Laurie, “Let’s step on the gas and see if this baby jumps!” She screamed, which kind of took the edge off the thrill. It’s definitely a muscle car by today’s or previous day’s standards. The V8, 426 HP engine even sounds like the muscle car when you ‘fire it up’. It has a beautifully smooth 6 speed automatic transmission and Stabilitrak with traction control. It has a 5 star safety rating across the board – gotta’ love that.
LAURIE: The Camaro came out in 1966, Chevy’s answer to the Ford Mustang. In 2002, after four generations of Camaro (1967—1969, 1970—1981, 1982—1992, 1993—2002), the plug was pulled on the model. My guess is a muscle car couldn’t carve out enough of a market niche at a time when the SUVcraze was in high gear. Then, in 2010, the Camaro had a comeback, the sixth generation—kind of like when the TV series, Dallas, which aired from 1978—1991, returned in 2012 with a new generation of the Ewing family.
JOHN: Dallas? The Ewing family? How does she come up with these things?
Is this a car you’d want to own?
JOHN: No, I’m too old; it’s too fast; I can’t drive it like it is meant to be driven, and if I did, Laurie would be planning my funeral arrangements, I’m sure. However, if I were a young executive working in the West or Midwest where speed limits are high, or if I could let it loose on the beltway around Atlanta or DC, I would probably think seriously about this American eye candy.
LAURIE: No. This is a “Johnny car.” It’s not that I didn’t enjoy driving the Camaro—I did. And it most certainly can be a woman’s car—just not this woman’s car.
Final thoughts?
JOHN: Want to be known as the ‘American race car fan’, the ‘local lug nut, the ‘boulevard bullet’? Then this is your car. By the way, did I say, “Can you say N-A-S-C-A-R?” The base price is about $23K and that seems like a really good bargain for an eye candy ‘muscle car’ of today. Ours had a MSRP of $36K, and $41K with all the options. That is getting pricey, but the old saying, “You get what you pay for” probably applies here.
LAURIE: The 2015 Camaro 2SS Coupe has an MSRP of $36,755 with a ton of options as standard. Fully loaded, it’s $41,080. It sweeps the Government 5-Star Safety Ratings—full marks for Overall Vehicle Score based on combined ratings of frontal, side and rollover; five-stars for Frontal Crash/Driver Passenger, for risk of injury in a frontal impact and five stars for front and rear seat side crash. And finally, five stars for rollover based on a single-vehicle crash. You sense this yourself. The Camaro rides low, hugs curves. There’s a lot of metal in this car. It’s heavy, it’s solid. It gets 18 mpg combined highway/city—not the greatest. But then again, this ain’t your average soccer mom’s car. The people who’d buy a Camaro pull on a pair of designer jeans on a Friday night and meet up with friends at caviar bars and drink Singapore Slings, wear topsiders without socks, get a pedicure once a week, and subscribe to Match.com. At least, that’s my take.
* * *
Driving Me Crazy Columnists Laurie and John Wiles.
John and Laurie Wiles have a combined driving history of ninety-five years. Laurie is one of only thirty-six journalists who are members of the prestigious New England Automotive Press Association (Tom and Ray Magliozzi, hosts of National Public Radio’s “Car Talk” among them.) Since 1998, Laurie has test-driven and reviewed over eight-hundred new model cars, trucks, and SUVs. John, a lifelong car enthusiast, has owned more than forty vehicles (so far.)
John and Laurie recently got the idea of combining on a weekly car review. Laurie explains. “One day, a gorgeous blue Porsche Cayman pulled in the drive. Johnny slides behind the wheel, cocks an eyebrow, and says, ‘The name’s Bond. James Bond,’ like he’s Sean Connery or something. The next week, a Chevy Camaro rolls in. Johnny gets one glimpse of that muscle car and shouts out, ‘Can you say N-A-S-C-A-R?’ Once I realized he wasn’t speaking in tongues, I realized his voice, together with mine, might be fun. After all, ‘sixty is the new forty.’”
John adds, “Men and women have very different opinions about cars and I think it’s good for people to get an understanding of what a couple think about a car, and what they like and don’t like. Of course, that doesn’t mean they have to agree on everything—you know, like the way it is in a marriage.”
Laurie, whose professional name is Laurie Bogart Morrow, is the author of a dozen books, including “The Hardscrabble Chronicles” (Penguin Putnam) and “The Giant Book of Dog Names” (Simon and Schuster. John is a retired program manager in the National Defense contracting industry and a teacher in the public school system. They live happily in Pinehurst, North Carolina.
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