Quote:
Originally Posted by Fraxum
Great post.
As to the interior it gets good marks on the quality front, but to me doesn't look like a $45K car. My wifes $35K Honda Accord Touring interior looks and feels a class up from my Camaro. The $$ were spent on the drive train and chassis with the Camaro. I am okay with that. Where the interior falls down for me is the styling. It looks very disjointed as if different people designed different parts and did not get together to make it all work. The worst part is the two lumps in front of the driver which decreases visibility even further for short people. The 5th gen Camaro had a show car interior. The quality of the materials was low, but if you squinted you felt like you were driving something special. To me the S550 interior, even on the base GT model, is better looking and classier than the CA6, and yet it also gives me the original Gen1 Mustang vibe in a nice way.
These are just my opinions on why the current Camaro is not selling as well as Chevy would hope. But the biggest reason for poor sales is these performance cars are getting very expensive and the younger upwardly mobile crowd are saddled with extremely large student loans. Many of them are moving to the cities and don't even want a car. Baby boomers are starting to die off. The middle class is shrinking. The biggest sales problem is not the car itself.
Now after saying all that, unless someone offers me an even up trade on the right 5th Gen ZL1 for my SS I might just keep it for my forever. I love driving it. But on long trips we will take the Honda. Me maybe not buying another one is also part of the problem. It is just too good.  |
Good post from a different perspective. Like you said, looks are subjective and we can agree to disagree on that.
Interior design and quality, while less subjective than looks, can still be debatable and polarizing. After comparing the interior of many other vehicles in a similar price range to the that of the Camaro, I can understand why people knock the appearance of the fit and finish. It's one area that's irrelevant to me though. It doesn't have to look expensive, as long as the ergonomics is there, and it's durable, which the Camaro's seems to be. I'd rather the money go into the engine, chassis and tranny.
After having sat in the Mustang, it was pretty obvious that Chevy's approach was a driver-focused design with the controls and center console being in easy reach. Notice how they tend to face the driver ever so slightly. For the most part, they achieved that, but at the expense of the roomy feel many are used to. Whether that's good or bad is obviously up for debate.
I like it though, and it works. The push-button start switch, the infotainment controls, the mode selector switch are all in easy reach and are positioned just right.
In the Mustang, while the shifter position was just as good, the push-button seemed out of place, and I didn't care for the old-style toggle switch design and where they were located among other things. The Camaro won on the ergonomics... for me.
I'm also a fan of simplicity. The Camaro's infotainment system, radio, A/C and vehicle information controls were a breeze to figure out. Also, the infotainment software, Mylink, was much more responsive and certainly less buggy than what Ford used in the Mustang. Their Sync 3 still needs work.
I've seen people knocking the center console vent locations in the Camaro, but I really don't care where the air comes from, once the cabin cools down.
The Mustang had the upper hand with the regards to the trunk opening, but that's it. There's supposedly more backseat room, but it wasn't obvious to me.
If you want back seat room and a big trunk, get a Challenger.
I agree with you with regards to sales, these cars are not as affordable as they used to be, which alienates a large part of their intended market. It's just one factor out of many that have been covered in this thread.