Like I said earlier, this group has some tough company. But as I understand it, this contest is not about which car is the fastest - it's about which car is the most satisfying to drive. No one with two neurons to rub together would expect a Camaro SS to put down better numbers than a ZR1. This story is not about such numbers. This here is a much more nuanced comparison.

Sure, I'm glad there's a Camaro here. I just wished it didn't have to come in dead last. The Camaro was bested here by all entries - some fairly exotic, some very affordable - for precisely the reasons I have long feared it would - mass (both weight and bulk) and interior (both design and ergonomics).

 

You know, it always aggravated me that they didn't do this again when they IROC-Z came out, which was a much better handling car. It would have won those by alot more.

 

ZOINKS SCOOBY!! The Camaro weighed 300 more pounds than the Mustang! It must have been an overbloated POS then too! Those articles have to be BS, are you trying to convince me that the heaviest car handled the best? I have been coming to this site long enough to know that the lighter car is always the better handler. Impossible!

 

The Z28 may have been able to do some butt damage to a few of those cars.

 

Good topic, to get two inputs from the FBodFather!
Even understanding the necessary limitations of the '10 Camaro, my excitement to get my black SS isn't diminished in the least. It is very hard to not call the dealership: "You said September, is it in production, yet?!"

It'll sit in the driveway next to my wife's black, '06 GT convertible. They're different. They are both excellent. The soccer moms and the poor hubbies forced to drive the minivan will hate us!

If it runs a little late for delivery, that's fine, too. Mid-October will be a very, very nice 50th b-day present. Tomorrow would be better, though...

 

I rarely post, but seriously that MT article is complete I started reading with an open mind, willing to accept some of what they were saying. However when I saw the Mustang score ahead of the ZR1, I just couldn't take it anymore. SERIOUSLY THINK ABOUT THAT. . . A MUSTANG OUTSCORING THE MOST INCREDIBLE CORVETTE EVER BUILT . . . AS A DRIVER'S CAR!!!!???? These guys are idiots and have zero credibility. It's a darn shame that the raw power of the ZR1 scared these guys so much that they had to PAY ATTENTION and PUT BOTH HANDS ON THE WHEEL And I think we could easily make a case to put the Camaro ahead of both the BMW1 and the 370Z. Don't even get me started on the Miata. . .That is not a driver's car, it's a girl car. Of course a 200lb power wheels car will out-handle the beastly muscle machine that is the Camaro. That does not make it a better driver's car. No more MT for me

 

Which articles are BS? The ones where the 3rd gen always won, or the ones where the 5th gen always lost?




BTW, I think some of you guys are still unable to process what the shootout is all about:

 

The car is already heavy.....Supercharger will add more fun!

 

I'm not worthy! I'm not worthy!

Sorry for the uber-old movie reference.

 

The word "Motortrend" should tell you the article is probably biased, anti-american and not worth the cost of the paper its printed on... why bother reading it?

 

I suspect you hit the nail on the head.

The SS uses the same identical tire as the Track Pack Mustang. Yet, not only does the SS weigh at least 300 pounds more, it also wears a skinnier version of the tire up front (SS wears 245s, GT wears 255s).

The Mustang carves up a track, so it's not the brand of tire.

I think your conclusion is dead on.


I believe the GTO would have faired exceptionally well. Perhaps, significantly better than Camaro.

The list is about driver's cars, not "people's-reaction-to-seeing-them" cars. The more I try out Camaro's interior, the less I like it. Once the excitement wears down a bit, that interior does seem a bit claustraphobic, the dash isn't exactly Camaro's strong point, and a few areas inside do seem cheaper and flimsier than not only the new Mustang, but the Challenger as well. The surrounding enviroment sitting in the GTO's seat is the exact opposite of the Camaros.

A quick look at the numbers between the GTO and the SS is a bit of an eye opener. The GTO matches the SS in 0-60, beats the SS on every rolling start catagory, brakes 5 feet shorter from 70 mph, reaches a higher skidpad (88g vs 85) and gets 3 more mpg on the highway*. Also, ther's no recurring mention of understeer with the GTO.

Add in the better visibility and the perception better quality of interior materials (or evidently better durability of same assembled interior parts), and that 0.3 second advantage SS has in the 1/4 mile doesn't seem to be enough IMO to top the GTO as a driver's car.

I'm sure if GTO was still being made, it would wind up on the list.

And maybe even ranked higher than the SS did.



* comparison numbers from Car and Driver tests.

 

Well if the Fbodfather says just wait and have faith then I will as he's been right in the past.

Really the Camaro did just fine for its first year and if the heavier CTS-V and GT500 can feel or handle better then there is much hope for the Camaro and its Zeta (Holden) underpinnings in years to come with refinement. Ford has been working on the current Mustang platform since 2005.

The ZR1 blew away the competition on the track but when subjectively rated it fell to 6th place and behind the Miata. So that tells us all how MT was judging these cars.

 

It didn't come in dead last. It came in as the tenth-best driver's car on the market today. Considering what it was up against, that is one hell of an accolade.

Having not read the article, I find myself wondering why there aren't any Ferraris on the list. $150k price cap?

 

It came in 10th out of 10, not 10th best in the world. Big difference.

 

Personally, I think of MT as a bland, scared-to-say-anything-bad-to-preserve-advertising-money magazine with either a lazy or at least error prone future cars section. However, they do tend to have good track related comparisons, and this is no different.

They even had Randy-Frigging-Pobst, a guy that drives fast cars and wins races every day for a living (real races like 24 hours of Daytona for example) doing testing and giving insight. Dismissing his opinions on fast cars and handling is like dismissing Scott Settlemire regarding Camaro information and history. You'd be incredibly silly if you did.

The whole point of this test is to find the best DRIVERS car. That means a car you can enjoy because the handling is predictable, the components work together flawlessly, the car has great capabilities, and...the car is easy to drive fast, not because of raw performance numbers.

Volumes have been said about the ZR1's scary handling. One test actually said the Z06 is the better handling car because it's far more predictable. Sure, the ZR1 has high capability, but it's also twitchy. It has a blown motor making 600-plus going through a car that's as light as a loaded Cobalt. There's alot of room for the ZE1 to be outranked by something far more balenced.

One point Probst made pretty much sums up the ZR1's placing:

And I agree.

As for the GT500, this was his observation:

This isn't some Motor Trend lackey here. This isn't some racecar-wannabe-driver. He's by no means on Ford's payroll, and opinions simply don't get much more valuable. To top it off, this was done at Lagina Seca. Not an easy track by any reach of the imagination.

You may not agree with the article's conclusions, but in this instance, being that they actually put the cars through identical tests on the same day and had at least one guy who simply is perhaps one of the highest qualified people around to help judge and give opinions, I'd put a whole lot more stock in their opinion and rankings (like them or not) than I would my own or others who have never driven these cars or are better writers than they are drivers.

IMO this test is legit.

As for Camaro, this is what their summary:

All in all, fair assesments given that alot of what was said about Camaro has been repeated in other tests.