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By James Gaffney Automotive writer A pair of thirtysomething guys sipping after-work beers in front of their boathouses in West End hailed me over as I was slowly driving past. I rolled down the window. “Is that the new Camaro?” one of them asked while admiring the exterior hip line on the car’s muscular fender forms. Less than two...

Photo by James Gaffney/The Times-PicayuneBy James Gaffney
Automotive writer

A pair of thirtysomething guys sipping after-work beers in front of their boathouses in West End hailed me over as I was slowly driving past. I rolled down the window.

“Is that the new Camaro?” one of them asked while admiring the exterior hip line on the car’s muscular fender forms.

Less than two hours later, while packing groceries into the trunk while parked outside a supermarket, a middle-aged guy approached and asked matter of factly: “So, how does it drive?”

“So far so good — well, OK, like a freakin’ rocket,” I said, adding, “You know, this is the reintroduced Camaro for 2010.”

“Oh, I know all about it — ever since I began reading about the prototype,” he said enthusiastically, eyeing the sculpted back end. “This is going to be a great car for GM.”

And so it went the first afternoon spent tooling around town in the first Camaro to hit local dealership floors since being mothballed in 2002. Turning heads. Inspiring questions from total strangers.

Emotional Rescue
If there is any car with the potential to make New Believers out of non-domestic automobile owners looking for a little American fun under the hood (and a lot behind the wheel), it’s this hi-octane asphalt eater. Simply put, the reinvented Camaro is destined to find drivers enthralled the second they plunk down into the sporty, cockpit-like front seat (slink low, sweet chariot!) and feel the full torque of this iconic pony car’s second and third gears (of a six-gear manual transmission) catapult them into the stratosphere.

Granted, you’re not going to fit luggage for a family of five in this sporty four-passenger coupe’s 11.3-cubic-foot trunk. But let’s be honest: who buys a car like this for its trunk? And the typical motorhead probably won’t care that the new Camaro boasts coat hooks, a lockable glovebox, pollen-filter air filtration system and front reading lamps. Rather, the reintroduced-for-2010 Camaro’s chief selling points hands-down include its classic, eye-catching “V” design, which nods to the first generation of Camaros (1967-69) while showcasing GM’s bold vision for its renewed future.
 
“There’s a lot of heritage with the Camaro — a lot of emotion tied up with it,” said GM/Chevrolet spokesperson Adam Denison.

No kidding. As a young boy growing up in Southern California, I still remember 1967 not just for the release of “Sgt. Pepper” but also the debut of the first-ever Camaro, which hit the hot streets of L.A. like a lightening bolt of utter cool to challenge the Mustang’s claim as the penultimate summer beach car. Camaro versus Mustang debates were as heated and prevalent among my 11-year-old peers as those over which TV show was cooler: “Mission: Impossible” or “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” (For my money “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” and the Camaro were always the obvious choices.)

Flash forward: today’s Camaro is a fiercely independent ground pounder with all the high-performance, fuel efficiency and safety bells and whistles of a thoroughly modern, 21st-century performance car.

Life in the Fast Lane
Plus, of course, there’s the speed. Lots of push-you-into-your-seat, G-force speed. Fortunately, an easy-to-read digital speedometer smack dab in the middle of this road beast’s dashboard of recessed, chrome-outlined gauges (another nod to the Camaro of yore) should help keep heavy-footed road warriors from spending too much time in traffic court. But even at slower speeds the 3.6-liter V6 engine, capable of churning out an impressive 304 hp, hums melodically under the hood like a well-tuned orchestra, just wa

Tags: Chevrolet

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VROOM SERVICE: After a 7-year hiatus, the reintroduced Camero proves a bona fide buzz thrill was originally published by New Orleans Auto Reviews: Chevrolet. Read the full story by clicking here.