This has to have been one of the most difficult car reviews that I’ve ever written. Why? Well, the new Camaro is fantastic in so many ways. In fact, having the pleasure of driving one for a week, especially the 6.2L V8 SS version, borders on what I would imagine a weeks vacation with a supermodel might feel like.

Everywhere you go, people stop and stare. Other drivers sneak sly glances at stop lights with envy written all over their face, and I’ve received numerous thumbs up gestures this week. Honestly, I awoke early each morning just to look outside and marvel at the fact she was mine, if only for a short space of time. This is a car designed to expand its owner’s chest. It is basically the automotive equivalent of the trophy wife, or in today’s world, that could also be the trophy husband.

However, there is an odd downside to all of this.

Whilst the exterior of the new Camaro is absolutely stunning, and I believe it to be one of the most drop-dead-gorgeous designs to have hit the street in the past decade, it did let me down in one or two areas. Of course, there’s not much in this life which can be deemed to be perfect. Brooke Shields has rather peculiar looking eyebrows and Cindy Crawford sports a mole the size of a small tropical island on the side of her face, but those things have never bothered me in the slightest. You see, there are certain things which I’m prepared to live with, and then, there are things which drive me absolutely bonkers.

Which brings us back to the vehicle in question, the new 2010 Chevrolet Camaro.

Looks wise, this vehicle has the beauty pageant in the bag, so to speak. That is, until one opens the door and ventures inside the vehicle. Now I don’t know if the exterior and interior designers were housed in the same body, but I would hazard a guess that they weren’t. The dash pod display reeks of old-school muscle car and is the perfect fit for this type of vehicle, but things went somewhat astray with the center control unit. This appears to have been taken straight out of a boring mid 90’s minivan and plopped into the center of the dashboard with about as much consideration as the producers of the Italian Job remake took with sticking to the original storyline. 

It also has a rather strange steering wheel. Now I’ll be honest and say that I managed to get acclimatized to it over the course of the week, but it took a day or so to get to that point. It just feels a little weird in your hands. Not in any way in which I can actually put my finger on, just a tad weird!

However, I could live with all this if it wasn’t for those infernal front seatbelt clips. These were obviously designed to affix the seatbelt close to the seatback so that the occupants wouldn’t have to reach so far back to find them. I’m guessing that they were also designed to be simple to detach, so as to allow for easy access to the rear seats. The trouble is, they simply don’t work. Oh yes, they clip off readily enough when someone needs access to the back, but they also seem to detach whenever you take a sideward glance at them! It’s a relatively small issue, but one which became increasingly irritating over the course of the week.

Never mind, let’s climb back outside and take another look at that almost perfect exterior. I say “almost” because there’s another small bugbear awaiting us, and that’s towards the rear of the vehicle and concerns the trunk opening. Sure, it’s got a fairly large trunk for what it is. In fact, massive would be a better description considering that this is a sports/performance vehicle, but how is one supposed to make use of all that space if you can’t fit anything larger than a Siamese kitten housed in a cardboard box through the opening? Honestly, this vehicle had to have been designed by a rather large team, because one guy managed to install a decent-sized trunk to the vehicle, and then some other fella went and goofed up the whole idea.

Of course, all this will be of little concern to those who lust after the new Camaro. After all, when was a car like this ever looked upon as a practical mode of transportation? No, the muscle cars of old were always about awesome amounts of power and stunning good looks, and it has to be said that this re-creation of the Camaro does justice to that line of thinking. However, things have moved on in the muscle car world and in one area in particular, that of fuel economy, things have improved dramatically. The Camaro now actually gets decent gas mileage (the 6.2L V8 SS (Manual) gets 13.2L/100kms city / 8.2L/100kms hwy – The 3.6L V6 (manual) version boasts 12.3L/100kms city / 6.8L/100kms hwy). OK fair enough, these might not be as impressive as the numbers boasted by the techno-geek in the funny looking contraption who lives next door to you, but take another look at the highway figures for the V6. Now you choose... ride around in a cool machine drawing huge amounts of attention or, save an extra couple of bucks at the pump. If you chose the latter, then I’d suggest a quick visit to the docs as I’m guessing there’s something slightly awry with your blood-pumping machine.