Mizblog

The family and I went out to test drive a new 2016 Chevrolet Camaro today. The Thousand Oaks dealership had two of them on the lot – both SS models with the V8 engine, and both with manual transmissions. It had been a while since I drove a manual shift, so I was apprehensive.

First we packed the girls into the back seat. That was rough. There isn’t a lot of back seat back there. Saranya had to sit behind me. Still, we all got in (including salesman Tom) and I fired it up, put it in gear, let out the clutch, and stalled. Oops.

After that, things got better. I was able to merge into traffic, shift up to 4th gear (out of 6 gears total) and finally got onto a freeway on-ramp. The car handled so solidly and smoothly! It was wonderful. I barely had to accelerate and I was speeding excessively. They’ve made the whole city into a 55mph zone. Ick. Anyway, I didn’t get a chance to try out how much power it actually puts down. It felt like rather a lot.

Visibility was poor, but I’m used to driving my 2004 Hyundai Tiburon so poor visibility is a regular thing. The Camaro wasn’t much worse. And it has a heads up display of speed, so you don’t have to take your eyes off the road to see how much you’re speeding. That was the biggest surprise of the test drive, seeing that number pop up on the windshield when I accelerated onto the freeway. It was very helpful.

Got the numbers on buying it, and it’s going to cost about $500/month more than my current car costs me to operate. That’s rather a lot.