[Cepak]

First, a little background on me so you can understand my perspective.

In January, I sold my 1963 Chevrolet Corvair Monza Convertible (102 hp rear engined air cooled flat 6, 4 speed stick) which I used as my daily driver for the past 10 years. Great gas mileage for a 52 year old car (22 mpg city, 30 mpg hwy). It also sat 4 people very comfortably. I wasn't planning to sell it, but I got an unsolicited offer I couldn't refuse.

I had seen quite a few Camaros around town, and I really liked the way they looked, so I started doing some research. The more I read about the Camaro, the more I liked. In February of 2015, I found a fully loaded 2014 Camaro 2SS/RS that had been on the dealership lot for 14 months, and bought it for 23% off of the sticker price.

Over the past 8 months, I've put 9,000 miles on my Camaro, and I've loved every minute of it. With all this power in this 6.2L engine, I'm still getting 20mpg city, 27mpg hwy, not much different than the 2.4L in my Corvair. Not as much interior room compared to the Corvair, but acceptable. My 5'4" tall daughter said she was comfortable in the back seat on a recent road trip to Austin.

Now after my long winded background story, here is my review of the 2016 Camaro SS at the auto show. There is no test drive in this review so I'll have to wait until they show up at the dealership.

One gripe about the auto show, why in the heck would you not put on display the top of the line, fully loaded model? Surely by now, they have to be available for auto shows.

The 2016 Camaro 1SS's exterior looked really sharp. I've seen photos online and in magazines, and it looks a lot nicer in person. My wife even liked the looks. There was a Corvette Z06 parked next to the Camaro, and the Camaro got all of the attention. Comparing the exterior size of the Camaro, it didn't seem that much larger than the Vette. You could especially see the Vette inspiration in the look of the rear end.

The interior of the Camaro 1SS they had on display, I wasn't too impressed with. Don't get me wrong, the dash, instrument cluster, and the MyLink looked nice, but the cloth interior on this Camaro looked cheap. My first impression sitting behind the wheel was that the interior room was definitely smaller. I had my daughter get into the right rear passenger seat, then my wife in the front passenger seat. Even though my daughter is 5'4", there was little head room and no leg room. There is no way she could have ridden back there comfortably on any road trip. I think the only reason there is a back seat would be for storage or for insurance purposes. Overall, my impression was that this Camaro is that it is a less expensive Vette, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, it just wouldn't work for me at this time. If I didn't have a kid, or had no need to ferry more than one other person, it would be fine.

Now I'm just waiting for one to show up at a dealership so I can take a test drive.

[juzefzoozoo]

Great Review! I really appreciate it. Please post your impressions after a test drive. Bummer that rear seats are practically useless. Luckily for me, I don't think it'll be an issue.

[bybcous]

I also think the 1ss interior is plain and thanks for the review. It does have all one would need in there though.

[raptor5244]

They had a 2SS at the Miami auto show last week but unfortunately it was roped off and nobody could sit in it. Kinda strange, we got folks climbing in and out of $80k vettes and CTS-Vs but the $45k Camaro was roped off.

[OldJedi]

Yes, it was very strange that you could not sit in the car at Miami. I certainly understand it for concept and limited production cars but not for regular production cars.

[SS 1LE]

While the leather is of course nicer, after seeing the cloth in person, I actually think it looks nice for cloth. I like the simple pattern, and the contrasting stitching is nice. Plus both are power adjustable. GM used to use some odd cloth not too long ago, with odd patterns and a strange feel, IMO the 1SS cloth, is actually pretty nice. Most reviews seem to agree too.