I’m going to try avoiding editorializing here, since taste is not really debatable. But what drew me to this array was (like the Volt yesterday) the juxtaposition of old and new. And certainly, the Camaro does reflect much of the modern sensibility in design, if to an exaggerated degree. But is there some continuity too? Let’s just walk around them for a minute…
Well, the eggcrate grille certainly does have a long tradition at Chevy, going back to the 1955’s handsome mouth.
Not much shared heritage from this angle, especially in terms of visibility. From the inside out, that is; that Camaro shows up on google earth.
So is this the inspiration for the Camaro’s taillights?
And here comes the driver of the Camaro. Actually, he didn’t use those exact words, but something to that effect. I assume he picked the color so that it would draw attention. And he did assume I was shooting only his car. Human nature.
I’ll take the Caprice fitted with the Camaro’s engine. Win/win.
I’ll take a Honda. Both of those are pieces of shit.
You’re getting into the ego deflation profession this week, huh?
“Hey wanna hear about my *fill in the blank* material possession?” speaks poorly about our cultural norms perhaps. Or with the proliferation of facebook life- maybe these guys just crave a little human interaction and their cars are a way to start a friendly conversation.
Oh, so many wild assumptions to make with a lime green Camaro parked near a liquor store…
I wonder if this phenomenon shows up more frequently in Chevy drivers? 🙂 At least it seems to in Eugene this week.
As a former owner of a bright red Mustang, I can testify that drawing attention to yourself in a sports car is not a good thing unless you always drive the speed limit. Even in an 88 HP Mustang.
I don’t get why people here rag on these guys for the way they try to initiate conversation while somebody’s taking a picture of their cars. I mean really, what do you expect? For them to talk about the weather while you do that? It’s absolutely natural to assume a guy taking a picture of your car may want to talk about it. The guy taking pictures but not willing to engage in interaction is the one that speaks poorly about modern cultural norms.
I said that he didn’t actually use those words. And I’m not ragging on him; just pointing out that folks make certain assumptions. And I was clearly behind both cars when he saw me. But who would possibly be interested in an old Chevy sedan?
It’s a reflection of a situation I create by being interested in something other than the obvious. Nothing more.
There is a post above and below here ragging on this guy, one for being presumptuous and another claiming he speaks poorly of our cultural norms. And there was a lot more of that kind of thing said in the EXP thread. I’m pointing out that such claims are ridiculous.
When I have been driving an interesting car (and I’ve had quite a few), people who are interested generally ask me about it. If they don’t I go on about my business.
I can’t imagine being so presumptuous as to have to ask people if they want to hear about it.
So if somebody was taking pictures of your car you wouldn’t assume they were interested in it? You would just ignore them and go on your way and you consider that to be the proper way to behave? Your world sounds like a lonely place.
We sort went around this wagon during the posts with the Volt/Prius/hybrid things etc.
The Camaro is a lifestyle vehicle, meant to bring out tangible and intangible benefits for the driver. I have a 2010 Camaro V6. Its yellow with black stripes. More of a basic model. I love it its plenty powerful for me for other than flat out competition and it looks good and it is a mini vacation of sorts when I go out in it. So its natural someone driving a vehicle like that, especially in that color, will have people notice, even casually. The opposite would be a Corolla, etc. as have talked about that is a purely functionary vehicle and not meant to effect emotion for the driver nor the rest of the world.
With that said, the pool of people that would notice and take interest in the Camaro (or any similar vehicle) is naturally going to be much larger, probably by several magnitude than the old Caprice. Those that may be interested in the Caprice probably divide into three camps: 1) Old people nostalgic for big American cars; 2) Rough Crowds ranging from people wanting to box them up, winos who like cheap easy to fix transportation, etc.; 3) Occasional gawker of older cars for the historical perspective which would likely include most of us but probably constitute a mere fraction of the population.
Depending on what year that Caprice is, the dude driving the Camaro might not have even been born when the Caprice was manufactured or too young to have any personal recollection. In situations like this if I was confronted by the owner of a vehicle that was not the object of my attention, I would not blow him off but rather offer up some conjecture like “its interesting to see how cars have changed, etc.” The last thing you want to do is anger or make a person feel bad for their personal preferences even if they differ markedly from your own.
No, you’re right. The camera assumes interest.
I like the Camaro’s colour but it looses on looks compared to the Mustang and Challenger
Really, I like the Camaro best by far. I find the Challengers pony car in full size scale just odd looking. Its not ugly, its just odd. Though its probably the best of all three as a “real car” it has a useable rear seat, biggest trunk, its more Charger (in the 1968 sense) than Challenger.
Seriously. My Challenger is perfectly capable of hauling four good-size adults and their luggage at 85 mph in complete comfort, and looks cool doing it. It’s really a luxury coupe in pony car clothes. If they put the interior from the 300 in it and gave it different styling, they could sell it as an Imperial coupe for $60,000 and no one would bat an eyelid. It’s really that good.
I am really much more of a sports car guy, but started looking at the modern pony cars when the new Boss 302 Mustang came out. I ended up deciding I wasn’t interested in waiting a year for the hullabaloo to die down so I could get it for MSRP, and on a whim drove the Challenger. Its combination of performance, handling (maybe not on a racetrack but it’s perfect for winding two-lanes) and comfort won me over. The fact that it’s the only one of the three that really looks somewhat like the original was icing on the cake.
It really is too big, and the hardpoints of the LX chassis make the proportions a bit wrong, but from most angles it looks great.
The Challenger is the only of the trio that really harkens back to it’s original concept in my eyes. The original was essentially a shortened Charger and the current one is a shortened Charger. Both, old and new, are MASSIVE pony cars. The Mustang and Camaro aren’t as big but they’re still massive compared to their original designs, or even from what they were ten years ago.
That’s not to say I’d pick the Challenger over them(I wouldn’t), but when I ask to myself “which car best represents the name?”, It’ll be the Challenger, hands down.
The original was a ponycar, it was smaller, the current one is like a Charger, its full midsize.
Well think about it “pony=small horse” etc. It wasn’t until the Camaro came out and the Charger was redesigned for 1968 that the whole muscle car power fest thing blew up. In a way, and this has been discussed extensively already, that the 74 Mustang II and even the Fox Mustang were more of a manageable sized iteration of the idea. The original Mustang was popular with ladies as was the Mustang II and the early Fox years it wasn’t until it turned into a man beast that it grew in size.
I do like the Challenger, I have seen a lot of them since they are ubiquitous in Mopar circles when I take my Imperial out (there are no real Imperial clubs around here you just sort of have to glom onto the Mopar guys and hope for the best…) and if I wasn’t attached to GM I would seriously consider one.
> The original was a ponycar, it was smaller, the current one is like a Charger, its full midsize.
To my knowledge the Mopar E-body (eg:Challenger) was basically a shortened B-body (eg:Charger) so in that regard I think XR7Matt has a point.
Craig: What year is your Imperial?
1981
I agree. Love the color. The car…not so much. I find the Challenger and Mustang much more attractive personally.
Owners of Camaros like that are looking to get noticed. Owners of Caprices like that, especially parked near a liquor store, probably are hoping to NOT be noticed…
An astute observation.
Nothing wrong with that in my opinion. Bright green camaros are far more interesting cars than say beige Corollas. Although I suppose it’s the Corollas that will get more attention from this site 20 years from now.
I have a sneak preview of tomorrow’s CC:
“Would you like to hear about my Porsche Panamera?”
“Umm, no thanks”
“Are you sure? It’s the black one with tinted rear windows and Georgia plates!”
“Nope.”
“Would you like to hear about my Porsche Panamera?”
Oh God no! It already severely damaged one sense!
No badges and disty tags, probably Porsche test cars.
Porsche truck concept.
There was a total of 6 identical cars with consecutive distributor plates all traveling together. Each car had two occupants. I didn’t get a chance to talk to any of them.
To keep his payment down, the dude on the left deleted the rear wiper option.
I prefer the caprice. Resembles the 77Impala wagon I stupidly let get away after practically rebuilding it.
I’ll take the Caprice.
Well, well, another 2 tone Caprice Classic….
I have an 80 that has a similar scheme with gold on top and cream on the bottom. With a factory sunroof too. Since they are not parked right next to each other and there aren’t any other new cars around you can grasp how much lower and long the Caprice looks in a parking lot with modern taller cars around.
I remember seeing the story you posted. I actually owned a twin of your Caprice, Carmine. Only with the 267 V8 and less options. Same cream and gold though with the same interior and low miles. Unfortunately, it met an early end under the back of a Dodge Ram (which still makes me angry to this day). I will get around to writing about that one soon, hopefully.
I’d take the Caprice in a hearbeat over the Camaro. Great long distance hauler with lots of room, and one thing the Camaro doesn’t have – visibility! It’s easy to fix and reliable too. That paint job on the Caprice was common in this area, but there are few B-bodies from this vintage left on the roads around here. You still see the occasional late 80’s models, but most are pretty rough now. They are still one of the few cars from the 1980’s you see in my area though, most 80’s cars rusted away ages ago.
I am sure the Camaro would be fun, but not in that colour. A new ILE would be nice, but maybe in red or black. Still, these Camaro’s are far too bloated and oversized compared to the older Camaro’s.
Bill, please come out of retirement and goad GM into infusing some style and color into their medium and large cars, ala ’65 Riv and ’66-’67 Chevelle. You and Mr. Earl are awesome.
Classic Chevrolet styling cues, I love them….the egg crate grille, the bow tie. The three tail lights per side harken back to…..58? They really came into vogue as I became more aware of neat cars in my early youth; the 62 Impala with the 3 tail lamps gave way to the 63, the 64 and the 65 only to disappear with the 66 and 67.
Check out the new Camaro for 2014 and those redesigned rear tail lamps look suspiciously like the 66 Impala or Caprice. It’s an odd look for sure. Something’s out of kilter in GM Design these days; the new Corvette Stingray’s rear lamps are no longer the traditional round lights as we are all accustomed to. And now, the 2014 Camaro throws out the tradition started with the 69 Camaro’s rear tail lamps.
I’m a fan of the boxy Caprice shown here. I thought it was a nice departure from the overweight land yachts that were the Impala and Caprice from about 72 onward. In my eyes this design was a heck of a lot cleaner, too. And I seem to recall Chevrolet was doing some fancy rear backlight glass bending on this model….
Not a fan of that Radioactive Green on the Camaro. My two cents? They should have instead introduced the true ’69 LeMans Blue on the Camaro with either a white or silver stripe package. To every Baby Boomer, we remember that shade well back in the day!
Tsk tsk, Michael. The Radioactive Green is great. It’s the rest of the car that blows dead goats.
Gee I wonder how they sell 100k of them a year…..
I mean tastes are subjective, it looks very good, its a sharp car, yeah there are compromises to the looks, but it looks good. All the tons and tons I see on the street cant be that wrong.
They are impressive, all of them: Mustang, Camaro and the Challenger. When you consider the base V6s are around 305 HP and sell in the low $20Ks they are a great performance value.
Last week I tried out a “Go to Have It Green” the paint being it’s only option on the Mustang. 29 MPG manual, 31 automatic.
Not only that, but they seem to have a crossed across generational boundaries, I see people in their 20’s and people in their 60’s driving them.
Ya know, Kevin and Carmine, I retract what I said. Looking at those pictures Paul took and that Radioactive Green really takes on a nice glow in sunlight. I kind of like it, on second thought!
Still wish they had gone with the LeMans Blue though. That would be one color that would really make me want to own this car, the retro look carried out with those original ’69 colors…..
I’m with you Carmine. The Camaro doesn’t fit my tastes or tickle my aesthetic senses but It’s good to see a niche car being built and selling well regardless.
The one minor styling trait Camaro features that reminds me of the Caprice is the pointed Vee to the egg crate grill and the ever so slight raised spine on the center of the hood.
Liquor at the Y!
Yes, I go there often.
BTW Paul, I really wish I would have stopped and took pictures of you taking pictures yesterday. That would have been the most meta-CC post ever. But I was heading to my new studio to set up my drums. Priorities!
Agreed.
So, does this mean Camaro owners are just as “sanctimonious” as Volt owners?
Yep. One sanctimoniously embraces automobile culture, the other sanctimoniously loathes automobile culture lol
Lots of moaning on CC and elsewhere about black-grey-silver-white as the modern exterior color choices. Oh, I forgot! For 2013 we also have root beer brown! The Camaro green is a bit over the top for me personally, but I appreciate seeing something beyond the dull spectrum colors.
This is from the driver of a 2001 bright blue Focus wagon. I get positive comments on the color all the time. 12 years in and I still love it.
To see this green color, it looks like AMC offers of “Big Bad Colors” offered for 1969-71 with Big Bad Orange, Big Bad Green, Big Bad Orange and Big Bad Blue. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1970_AMC_Big_Bad_colors_3-together_front.jpg
A big bad green Javelin,one of my must have cars and a forgotten pony car,when was the last time you saw one in a show or magazine among the acres of early Mustangs,Camaros and E body Mopars..
Gem, Hemmings Muscle Machine’s magazine has printed out many, many stories on AMC muscle; all in glorious color! Highly recommended. Through that magazine, I’ve taken a real liking and respect to what the folks in Kenosha did with what little they had.
Thanks Michael,will keep a look out for it.The AMC story’s like a motor industry version of Rocky
I have sat in a couple of the new Camaros, and while I like their looks, the visibility from inside is pretty bad. Those looks come at a price. That said, I do like the way they look, and absolutely love the green on this one. I have sat in a new Challenger and driven the Mustang, and the Challenger seemed to have the most room and best visibility for daily driver duty. But I like the Caprice too!