The Unawriter's Lair

Classic vs. New Camaro

Street racing is never a good idea, but racing along across a bridge seems to be a particularly bad plan. Nevertheless, a group of folks in Northern California decided to pit a 2010 Camaro SS against a '68 Camaro SS convert that has been heavily upgraded to include 3:73 gears, a 406 cubic inch V8 and a five speed manual tranny.

Here are the results. I'm glad nobody got hurt, especially after the guy in the '68 noted how "spongy" his brakes became after the first two runs. Apparently, the same group also pitted the new Camaro against an early 70's Chevelle, too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxJODfIDMnE&feature=related

The Next Best Thing to a New Trans Am

Last weekend, I took a break and drove over to McMullin Chevrolet in Dallas, Oregon. This is a smaller dealership and the former home of our GTO. They just received a new 2010 Camaro RS, and I got a chance to crawl through it. Granted, it is the V-6 version, but consider this folks: Then V-6 puts out just over 300 HP--nearly as much as the '09 Mustang GT. It'll do 0-60 right around six seconds, so it is no gutless gas sipper.

I didn't get a chance to drive it, but I did form a few impressions. First, the bad: I hate the stupid plastic cover that covers up the engine. Seriously, if you've got the horses, why not show the beast that puts 'em out, right? Also, the paint color (silver) is a little bland for my taste. In fact, in all one color, the Camaro looks a tad on the generic side. This is a car that begs for racing stripes.

Now the good: the fit and finish is outstanding. The interior is the best produced by a domestic car company in years in the price range. The leather is beautiful, the stitching is ultra-cool. The dash doesn't have all that awful cheap plastic look the G6 and Solstice have.  The instruments are laid out in a very hip retro manner, and the extra gages at the bottom of the center stack is enough to get the heart racing just a tick faster. This is a car you want to spend time in. It has none of the generic look of the Impala SS or the Monte Carlo SS. It's well-laid out and visually dramatic.Stylish without being busy, the entire interior experience just oozes coolness.

The design is mean and aggressive with plenty of retro thrown in so nobody who knows anything about cars will mistake this for a Camry or a Tercel. It is a Camaro its bones, and it wears the lineage very well. Given that the Zeta platform was designed by Holden in Australia, and the Camaro is actually produced in Canada, it's hard to call it an American icon, but that's exactly what it is. It is a once-in-a-generation, trend-setting sort of car. It'll be a shame if GM's woes causes this to be a still-born launch, sort of like what happened to the G8. 

I hope the ridiculous dealer mark-ups don't kill sales. MSRP on the base version is supposed to be around $24K. I've seen them marked up well over $30,000. The V8 powered SS is supposed to start at a little over $30K. This makes it very competitive to the Challengers and Mustangs. But, the only Camaro SS I've seen listed in Oregon so far has a sticker price over over $52,000. Let's be real, folks. For 52 grand, you can plink down the greenbacks for a 549 horse Shelby GT500. Live axle be damned, all that power is worth the cash.

Thanks are due to Dennis and Bob at McMullin Chevrolet. They let me crawl through the car and take the pics posted here. 

When I get a chance to drive one, I'll be sure to review it here at the lair-on-the-web. In the meantime, I'll have to drool from afar and hope that the Camaro SS's don't remain priced in the stratosphere for long.

George: To Thrash or Not to Thrash

  Tonight I was taking a break from writing and found a site that listed production figures for 4th gen Pontiac F-bodies. It was pretty cool info, and the small production volumes of such cars as the '98 T/A convert with the WS6 package (339 built) fascinated me. The Firebird Formulas, which came with the V-8 the T/A's used (LT-1 or LS-1 after '97), are also pretty rare. In '96, there were 524 Firebird Formulas built with the ram air hood and WS6 performance package. I was pretty amazed to learn that some of these configs are even more rare than the Firehawk, which was a souped up, limited edition Formula or T/A produced by SLP.

I scrolled down to '93, just to see how many of my Trans Ams are out there in the world. Okay, jaw hit the desk. There were 839 Trans Ams built that year with the T-Top option like mine has out of a total of 4,282 produced. A quarter of the 93's came with manual 6 speeds, which means George, my T/A, is one of roughly 200 configured with the six speed and the T-Tops. There were fewer of my cars built than Firehawks in the years that followed. While that doesn't make the care more desirable than the ultra-performance version, it does make it a small piece of Pontiac history.

At first, I thought this was pretty cool. But now I have a problem. George is bone stock, but also bone weary from the 200k on the clock. Do I continue with the rebuild and destroy the car's original configuration with a crate motor, new exhaust, headers, etc, then gather the guys (and Jones) to thrash him at the Woodburn drags as I intended when I bought it. Or, do I toss the drag racing idea and rebuild the motor so all the numbers continue to match and hold onto George in hopes that someday, his value will appreciate?

Being an historian, I don't think I've got the heart to destroy a rare car's integrity. So, I think we're back to square one with the drag team. Maybe we can use that '62 Lincoln Continental Sergeant Jacques keeps threatening to buy!