Quote:
Originally Posted by snizzle
I'd say almost completely irrelevant for 90+% of Camaro buyers, hardtop or not.
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Exactly. If this car was built for and marketed to just those people who want to race the thing, it would have been built in one trim only - 1SS coupe - and it would have fell flat on its face.
Contrary to what the performance purists seem to want to believe, the Camaro was never designed to be just for people who want to autocross or go around a track. Sure, the most famous ones could do that, but that didn't make the other models and trims illegitimate. Convertibles (and V6's, the only thing the purists hate more than convertibles) have always been part of the lineup, and there's no reason for it to not be now. For that 90%, the Camaro is more about affordable performance and looking good while doing it, it's about making the engine roar accelerating up an on-ramp all the way to the blistering speed of... 5-10mph over the speed limit? Most of the SS owners probably aren't going 0-60 as fast as the V6 does it at every light anyway, and most of the V6's are doing it as slow as the Challenger SE - so how many among that part of the buying population is REALLY going to notice if the convertible is a tiny bit slower? At the risk of being tossed out of the forum for heresy, dare I say that for most SS owners, the ones who own it to cruise around in it rather than regularly smoke Mustangs at a track, that 400+hp may be pretty blatant overkill?
But who cares? In every form this car is a lot of fun, no two ways about it. For the hardcore performance junkies, there will be the Z28, and there is the body-in-white (because when performance rules, nothing less will do right?). For the rest of us, there are lots of options depending on our own tastes and environment and budgets. Just like it always has been with the Camaro.
And for my part, I think the convertible looks great! Not so much with the top up, but that's true of any convertible. The trunk space thing is no big deal - I've nearly talked some relatives of mine into getting a Camaro convertible to replace their Miata, and when I told them about the trunk space complaints for the Camaro they laughed! The XM antenna is another thing that doesn't really bother me - it's a goofy location, but I don't like it any more on the coupe where I think it's even more prominent and not paint-matched, so who am I to split hairs. On the other hand, the way the top-down look exaggerates the coke-bottle shape of those big hips looks ridiculously cool.