When push comes to shove, as it so often does, the 1996 Chevrolet Cam-ar-o Z28 is not a very practical car.
The Camaro's back seat is strictly grade-schooler territory, the deep but narrow trunk will hold a couple of weekender suitcases and not much else, it turns into a Frisbee on ice or snow, and the view of the world it affords driver and passengers is remarkably similar to the one you get from inside an Abrams M-1 tank.Funny thing, though. All those negatives just fade away the moment you strap yourself in, fire up that wonderful 5.7 liter LTI V8, slip the Borg-Warner T56 six-speed manual transmission into first, romp on the go-pedal and let the clutch fly. Whoopeeeeeeee!
Like girls, boys just wanna have fun, and snorting around town this past week in a "medium quasar blue metallic" Z28 coupe is the most fun this boy has had since . . . well, since the last time I tested a big Z-car, back in September, 1993.
A word, though, about driving this car on slippery roads: don't. If I had been testing the Z-car during the spate of blizzards a few weeks ago, it would have spent the week in my garage. Those big, wide H-rated tires that provide such awesome, race-car-like grip on dry pavement, become sled runners in the snow. In Utah, I see the Camaro as an excellent companion piece to your Chevy Blazer. You go out to your garage and pick which one to drive according to the weather forecast.
The Camaro is a "pony car" - a name derived from the 1963 Mustang that launched the segment and includes, along with the Mustang, the Pontiac Firebird/TransAm. I can't think of another model that quite fits the niche occupied by those three.
As such, a pony car is sort of a sports car but not one that any Brit, Italian or German devotee of the breed would recognize. The Camaro is American Graffiti incarnate: main street drag races, talking engines and gear ratios in the parking lot at the state fair, changing your own oil out in the driveway . . . real Levis and white T-shirt stuff.
If Harley-Davidson is the weekend ride of choice for 100-percent-born-in-the-U.S.A. bikers, then Chevy Camaro is what they drive to work on Monday morning.
Oh, yeah, the Camaro is also rear wheel drive; none of that effete front wheel drive or four wheel drive stuff. Pony cars have to be able to lay rear-wheel rubber clear across the intersection to be worthy of the name - maybe fishtailing a bit so that the upright citizens in their sensible Accords and Camrys can get really upset at the hooliganism going on before their eyes.
I've never actually owned a Camaro, or any pony car for that matter, but I've driven a lot of them over the past 30-plus years, and the '96 Z28 is, without question, the best of the lot by a very wide margin.
Camaros used to be about harsh rides; creaks, groans and rattles from every quarter; vague, shambling steering that seemed to want to take the car anywhere but straight down the lane you had picked out. They always went fast, but it was kind of scary fast, not-really-in-control fast.
That's history. The new Z28 has nary squeaks nor rattles, it steers and tracks precisely and feels rock solid safe at speeds that are not an option in any bill that might ever come before the Utah Legislature.
It's also a surprisingly comfortable car, at least once you're inside (this is a car whose roof is level with my sternum; getting in and out is not as problematical as a Corvette, but it's no Cadillac Fleetwood, either). The black-leather clad seat (leather is a reasonable $499 option) was firm, comfy and very supportive. I could drive the car all day without getting tired.
In addition to being able to rocket away from everything else on the road except exotics costing three times as much as the sub-$20k Camaro (more on price in a moment) the Z-car is also a very nice looking piece of automotive sculpture, especially with the ($500 option) gorgeous and aggressive 16-inch chrome aluminum wheels found on my test car.
Fact is, the Z28 is darned exotic itself for a car that is as American as Bob Dole and "Wheel of Fortune." For a $19,390 base price you get a well-designed, well-screwed-together performance car that will leave the new and much pricier BMW Z3 eating your gravel. You would not only catch James Bond with the Camaro, you would drive right over him.
As is the usual case with media vehicles, my test car came with a host of options that boosted the bottom line to $23,956, but I wouldn't want to go without any of them.
The six-way power driver's seat was $270; body side molding added $60; carpets were $15; something called "acceleration slip regulation" (traction control) was $450; upgraded and super-beefy HW4 tires added $225; a Delco-Bose CD stereo was another $606 and a $1,266 "preferred equipment group" added cruise control, remote hatch release, fog lamps, power windows/doors/mirrors; leather steering wheel; remote keyless entry and theft alarm. Destination charge was $505.
Fuel mileage is not that bad for a V8 powered performance car. The Z28 is rated at 16 mpg city and 27 highway for a combined 20 mpg. That's with the manual transmission. With the automatic, it's rated at 17 city, 25 highway and also 20 combined.
But I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't get a little better mileage with the automatic. That's because the manual tranny has a lockout device that, if you don't accelerate hard in first gear, it defaults the shifter over and down into fourth gear instead of second.
I don't care for this device, because it means you end up giving the accelerator an extra blast, whether you want to or not, to avoid having the bottom fall out when it shifts to fourth instead of second.
The rationale for this is to save fuel; going from first to fourth obviously avoids those extra revs as you wind through second and third gear. I understand the reasoning, but I still don't like it. Such a thing would not even be possible in most cars, of course, but the Z28 power plant is so awesomely torquey (a monster 325 foot-pounds of torque at 2,400 rpm) that a low-speed shift from first to fourth won't cause the car to buck or stall.
I found myself constantly working to defeat the thing, an exercise in frustration as I tried to force it into second, or went for third, instead, or accepted the shift to fourth and then immediately shifted back over to second. Sounds childish, I know, but that's what happens when a mechanical device tries to do my thinking for me. I rebel!
Chevy, listen to me, your six-speed manual is a wonderful transmission except for that "skip shift" device. If we want to save some gas we can decide for ourselves if we want to shift from first to fourth. We don't need Big Brother making the decision for us.
Whew. Glad I got that off my chest. I just bet Chevy takes my advice and eliminates the thing right away. (Of course I also believe in the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny, so maybe I'm not the best judge.)
Bottom line: The 1996 Camaro Z28 is a great specialty car for special people. It's not the most practical transportation device, but with a trunk and at least a vestigial back seat it's not the least practical, either. The Z is a performance car and an image vehicle and that means there will be a price to pay in higher insurance rates and closer scrutiny from law enforcement personnel.
But if you just have to have one, nothing else will do.