Camaro why?

[JulesMaximus]

Agreed and i have a lot of respect for the guys and gals who do the work. Too tedious, time consuming, and wallet draining for my tastes. Every once in a while I go shopping for someone else's mistake. The most recent was a well done early 70's corvette. LS2 conversion and decent stock-ish interior/exterior. It's an example case of the pitfalls of a resto mod.

It was, and still is, an old car. Yeah a modern drive train goes a long ways towards making it more reliable. Livable? That is questionable. This vette did not have AC. The need for some sort of heat shielding under/over the tunnel was apparent after 15 minute drive. The dash creaked. The chassis/suspensions setup had some judders. The steering was a bit vague. It was well sorted and all electricals worked but they are just.....old and more prone to failure. It looked killer and certainly had the nostalgia vibe in spades.

Sunk costs. If it's a labor of love. I suggest keeping them forever. The problem with the corvette described above is it had a stack of receipts and he was only asking half the total. I offered him about a third of what he had in it. He didn't want to do that deal at the time. 6 months later it was listed for what I offered. This guys dream car just whacked him in the cojones for over $30k loss.

For the price he had into his resto mod a brand new drop top mustang GT with all the bells and whistles could have been in his driveway. After having driven both I'd much rather have the new car.

Agreed. I just don't see resto-mods being driven much except as a weekend blvd cruiser and I live in the land of the automobile (Southern California). Definitely not a daily driver. I don't even see people driving Vipers daily. I have seen people driving cars like the Bentley Continental GT daily and Maseratis or $100k+ BMWs and Mercedes as their daily transportation.

BTW-I saw a pretty cool Hudson coupe a couple weeks ago in Newport Beach. I don't think I've ever seen one on the road before... not that I can recall anyway.

 

[Tormac]

the current camaro is the first one i really like the styling of in a long, long time. GM did exactly what it needed to do in making it 10% smaller in every dimension. except those damn gunslit windows.

but should be a great driver's car, as it's essentially ATS v. 2.0 underneath, and that is already a great driver's car

I am going to agree with this. The rear wheel dive with the magnetic suspension is a great car to drive. It is comfortable and yet zippy with very nice road feel.

I don’t have the Camaro, but the ATS. However, they should be very similar rides, and they share the same platform and suspension, and approx. the same weight.

I needed to get a four door car with a rear seat, but wanted the liveliest handling car I could find that I would not feel guilty putting my new step son in the back seat of. (My daily driver, before I was married, was a Lotus Elise, a car that I loved, but is just not practical for a family man).

I had assumed that I was looking at a BMW 335i, but found that the ATS had better road feel and was zippier and more lively turning.

I do think that the Mustang looks better, but the Camaro will be the livelier handling car.

 

[gus6464]

So before we head out to drive the Lexus this weekend I went out yesterday and test drove the Camaro 1SS and Mustang GT Performance Pack back to back to see what I would be missing. When I drove the Camaro I hadn't driven the Mustang GT in a while so decided it would be better to do a back to back comparison.

The Camaro was 1SS manual with exhaust package and magnetic ride control
The Mustang was a GT Premium manual with PP

So a couple of things were immediate and it was the Camaro drove a lot better than the Mustang. I mean the Camaro was freaking planted to the ground. Also the Camaro transmission was smooth as freaking butter. The clutch on the Mustang was finicky.

Now the thing that I still couldn't get over is the damn visibility of the Camaro. The damn car feels like you are in a shoebox with tiny windows. It really bothered me.

The main kicker is price. The Chevy dealer wanted $40k for the Camaro while the Mustang GT Premium was $40k as well. Main difference is that the Camaro was cloth while the GT was leather and pretty much fully loaded. The Ford dealer offered me a much better price. The Chevy dealer didn't want to play ball.

 

[JulesMaximus]

So before we head out to drive the Lexus this weekend I went out yesterday and test drove the Camaro 1SS and Mustang GT Performance Pack back to back to see what I would be missing. When I drove the Camaro I hadn't driven the Mustang GT in a while so decided it would be better to do a back to back comparison.

The Camaro was 1SS manual with exhaust package and magnetic ride control
The Mustang was a GT Premium manual with PP

So a couple of things were immediate and it was the Camaro drove a lot better than the Mustang. I mean the Camaro was freaking planted to the ground. Also the Camaro transmission was smooth as freaking butter. The clutch on the Mustang was finicky.

Now the thing that I still couldn't get over is the damn visibility of the Camaro. The damn car feels like you are in a shoebox with tiny windows. It really bothered me.

The main kicker is price. The Chevy dealer wanted $40k for the Camaro while the Mustang GT Premium was $40k as well. Main difference is that the Camaro was cloth while the GT was leather and pretty much fully loaded. The Ford dealer offered me a much better price. The Chevy dealer didn't want to play ball.

I've always hated that about the Camaro. Every Camaro I've ever driven felt like I was sitting in a bucket with the door sills at about eye level and you have horrible outward visibility. This is probably why I've owned two Mustang GTs and zero Camaros.

BTW-I recently purchased a low mileage 2014 Mercedes Benz E550 Coupe for $42k which still has the factory warranty and another year CPO warranty on it. Honestly, this car is a bargain used. It has leather, panoramic roof, COMAND, 400hp at the wheels. It's not really a track car but for everyday driving it is pretty damned fast, very comfortable and classy.

 

[gus6464]

I've always hated that about the Camaro. Every Camaro I've ever driven felt like I was sitting in a bucket with the door sills at about eye level and you have horrible outward visibility. This is probably why I've owned two Mustang GTs and zero Camaros.

BTW-I recently purchased a low mileage 2014 Mercedes Benz E550 Coupe for $42k which still has the factory warranty and another year CPO warranty on it. Honestly, this car is a bargain used. It has leather, panoramic roof, COMAND, 400hp at the wheels. It's not really a track car but for everyday driving it is pretty damned fast, very comfortable and classy.

I tried to find an e550. 0 in socal right now. Tons and tons of e350s though.

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