Rental Fleet Review - Camaro RS Convertible

"Dunnik" (dunnik) 08/20/2013 at 10:55 • Filed to: OPPOSITE LOCK, RENTAL CARS, CAMARO

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Chevrolet's Pony Killer is built just up the highway from where I live at the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Ironic: a rag top built in Canada, where you can only enjoy a convertible 4-5 months of the year. During those months though, this car is one of the most popular !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in our fleet.

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This is a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! car. With the top down, it's Dr. Jekyll. With the top up, it's Mr. Hyde. This is because of visibility issues: with the top down, your view is essentially infinite, but with the top up, it has the worst visibility of any car I've ever driven in my entire life.

The reason for this borderline unsafe visibility is, in a word, marketing. In an attempt (successful, it must be noted) to make the new Camaro look like a modern take on the classic late 60's models - and thus potentially attract affluent Baby Boomer men who lusted after that car in their youth - the roof line was lowered to the point that the windshield is like peering through the slit of some !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and if you try to stick your head out the window - to, say, get a parking ticket from a machine (or, in my case, to use our company ID tag on the gate scanner) then there's a good chance you might bite your tongue off as your head may become jammed in the A-pillar. Convertibles are not the most practical of cars with the top up (plastic rear-windows on the old Miatas come to mind) but this car takes impracticality to a whole new level.

Image Credits: (Top, Above) Motor Trend Magazine

Speaking of impracticality, the other day I saw two of our customers pulling out of our lot with this car: they had placed some of their luggage in the rear seats (which are, as you might expect, only fit for children or child-sized adults). This was because the trunk space is far smaller than you might expect for such a big car, due to, of course, the roof needing space to be retracted. All convertibles suffer from this problem to a greater or lesser extent, but I thought that this car's size would mitigate that: apparently not.

Photo Credit: General Motors

The interior is a bit of a mixed bag. The squared-off instrument clusters are a nice touch: an homage to the classic Camaro - speedometer on the left, tachometer on the right, with a modern LCD screen in the middle. Its stylish and functional, which is a bit of rarity: many clusters are one or the other, but not usually both. The wheel is nice, and well-adapted to the proper 9 and 3 hand positions. Its size strikes a nice balance between sport and comfort. Controls on the wheel are similar to other Chevy products: just enough controls without being overburdened with buttons of limited utility. Seats are very comfortable and the cabin will easily accommodate taller people. Overall, driving position is good.

But yet again, the above is Dr. Jekyll. Mr. Hyde makes an appearance in the interior as well. In another dubious attempt to emulate the classic Camaro, a four gauge cluster (oil temp, oil pressure, transmission temp, voltage) is placed very low down on the console, below the radio unit and above the shifter. While they are at least angled up to face the driver, the position is such as to render these gauges useless when driving the car as you have to take your eyes off the road to see them: they are so low, even peripheral vision will not save you if something unexpected happens. But it doesn't really matter, anyway, since these gauges are more marketing than engineering: on a modern car, they're more "cool" than "must have".

Image Credit: Phastek Performance

Chevy's "MyLink" infotainment unit isn't half bad, actually. The unit still seems to have some ancient !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! - despite it all, the unit still has volume knob on the left and a tuning/selector knob on the right, which makes it familiar and intuitive to somebody who grew up in/with GM products of the 1980's. Otherwise, the screen is well-positioned and has all the usual things we've come to expect in a modern unit: navigation, smartphone connectivity, satellite radio, bluetooth.

Image Credit: CNET

The Camaro's party trick is its Heads Up Display. While certainly not the first car to have this technology - that was a GM first, actually - it's still very !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . The image is somehow projected far deeper in your field of vision than previous generations, so instead of seeming to appear like, right in front of your face, it's projected just above the hood-line. GM seems to know that with HUD's, the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! applies, and so all that is displayed is the current speed with a engine revolutions meter curled around it. To anyone born in the video game era (1970-ish or later), it's something you will want on all the time: it's cool and extremely practical. To an older clientele - perhaps the Baby Boomers, lured by GM's retro styling - it may prove difficult to get used to (you can, of course, always turn it off at the touch of a button).

Speaking of retro, that's kind of how this car feels to drive. It strongly reminds me of Camaro's of yore, in particular the late 70's RS. Its suspension is no longer !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and so it actually hunkers down reasonably well in the corners. But you still feel as if you're driving a big, American car. With the traction control off you do feel as if you have a really, really big ass hanging out as you swing around corners. Easily recoverable, though, but it's not very elegant.

Convertibles can be elegant, but this is, or supposed to be, a muscle car. A Pony Car - a Pony Car Killer, to be precise. It doesn't do elegant. Elegant is not even a word in its vocabulary, and if it were, it would scoff at the notion of it. What it does is power, and even in modest RS trim ("Rally Sport"!) with the 3.6L V6, it provides. Some purists may scoff at a V6 muscle car as a contradiction in terms, and for them there's always the V8 SS, but in convertible form, the performance of the V6 seems very appropriate. To put it crudely, the car has balls. Not very big ones, but it does have them. Passing and merging on the highway is a breeze, and the car has some potential to be hooned (although I've avoided the temptation to do so, as my employer doesn't like hoonage, go figure).

Much has been sacrificed to looks, but it must be said that they've succeeded. This is a very sharp looking car. It's all too easy to mess up a "retro" styled car, but this generation Camaro nails it. It's obviously a modern car but equally obviously, it's the child of its ancestors.

Perhaps it all boils down to one question when it comes to the looks of a muscle car: does it look badass?

Yes, yes it does.

Image Source: wpapers.com

dogisbadob > Dunnik 08/20/2013 at 11:03

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The Camaro sucks because of the visibility, but there's nothing inherently wrong with convertibles built where it's cold all the time. The Boxster used to be made in Finland, and Saab convertibles were made in Sweden.

Dunnik > dogisbadob 08/20/2013 at 11:09

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When you don't have much summer to enjoy, it tends to sharpen your focus, to make hay while the sun shines, so to speak. Sunny days are a rarity in England, and yet the English were famous for their convertibles.

I still think it's a bit ironic, though, to make a car for a country where you can't enjoy it year 'round. Convertible American muscle car just evokes crossing the Nevada desert, or cruising Miami Beach.

This begs the question: how many 2010-14 Camaro RS convertible owners drive their cars in the winter? One could: get a warmer coat, winter tires and take it easy. But I'll bet that most cold-climate owners of this car would garage it for the winter.