Chevy Camaro Review

The Chevrolet Camaro easily latched onto fame when it first came out in the late 60s. It was back in the days when people rarely, if ever, see sports cars on the common road. If ever they see one, it was probably owned by a successful businessman or a billionaire playboy who secretly haunts the streets at night, dressed in a bat costume. Sport and muscle cars were way out of anybody’s league. You see them in movies, in magazines, and at the back of young men’s notebooks, hastily drawn during a boring math class or at lunchtime. That was basically it.

Then came the Chevrolet Camaro. The Chevy Camaro had such an impact because it was a reasonably practical car that middle class people can buy. The sleek Camaro, which came in coupe and convertible models, had looks and performance that came close to Ferraris and Lamborghinis, with one major difference: The Camaro was real. You see it on real roads, being driven by real people. Whereas you only see Ferraris and Lamborghinis on magazines and blockbuster films, being driven by people who don’t resemble anybody you knew in real life.

The early Camaro design was originally made as an answer the Ford Mustang, another reasonably priced pony car aimed at the middle-class. While the Camaro was more sophisticated and performed a little bit better, other guys preferred the Mustang which started a rivalry along the lines of mods and rockers - the Mustang guys against the Camaro boys. It was a close competition but the Camaro somehow managed to edge a little bit further.

The Camaro had the IROC and Z28 versions, with Z28 being more popular due to its hyperactive 302-cubic-inch V8, sport suspension, and road racer look. There’s also the SS model, which is basically a powerful muscle car that could have up to 396 cubes of thumping V8 power. Through the years, the Camaro came out in a wide range of flavors that focused either on style and design or performance. By holding out and shelling a little bit more money, you can have both.

Being such an outstanding performance and style bargain, the Camaro lasted for up to four generations until production was stopped in 2002, its design and performance aging considerably compared to other sports coupes and convertibles, which made the Camaro look crude, unrefined and underpowered. Still, the sheer popularity and brand awareness achieved by the car model meant that it would not stay dead for long.

After four years in car limbo, the Chevrolet Camaro recently experienced an upsurge in popularity when the 2007 live action movie version of The Transformers featured a more aggressive Bumblebee that could transform into a black-striped, yellow Chevrolet Camaro, radically different from his original iteration, which is an underpowered and chubby autobot that can transform into a yellow Volkswagen. In light of the movie’s recent DVD release, GM has decided to go into limited production of the Bumblebee Camaro and is slated to be released sometime in 2009.