Spec Check
Price: from $30,995
Engine: 6.2-liter LS3 V-8
Horsepower: 426 at 5,900 rpm
0–60: 4.6 seconds
Top speed: 155 (elec. limited)
Mileage: 24 highway/16 city
The Look
A knockout. The Camaro SS’s predatory, high-haunched design is even more menacing in the wild than in the new Transformers. The look is all-out aggro, from its gill slits to the halo headlights to the wide, low stance courtesy of 20-inch wheels pushed to the corners. We drove it in black, and the stealthy modern ride went mostly unnoticed; in red, we had to beat the crowds away with a spiked bat.
The Muscle
Suitably Ahnoldian. Turn the key and the beast’s low-revving pushrod V-8 rumbles to life, telegraphing the potential of 426 horses through its chunky short-throw shifter straight to your nervous system. Open ’er up and you’ll mow through the Tremec manual tranny’s six gears and find yourself in triple digits in a blink. The brakes? They’re massive 14-inch Brembos. And we barely used ’em.
The Drive
The high beltline creates gun-turret-like visibility, and its rock-hard suspension proved the enemy of N.Y.C. potholes (and a full Starbucks in the console). So we ditched the city and hit this brute’s natural habitat: a desolate stretch of Long Island asphalt. Traction control off, dump the clutch with the rpm’s way up and…we’ve laid a patch of rubber visible from space! Thanks, Google Earth!