That last video was the final deciding factory in my going forward trading my Grand Sport for this car.

 

N U F F S A I D ! ! ! !
What else can be said? Here's a car with a tried and true no frills engine freely putting out 415hp, count'em, four hundred and fifteen non turbo or super charged horsepower!! A bullet proof 6 speed manual transmission, laser sharp handling with nearly 50/50 weight balance on a muscular stance, enough onboard tech to make the Geek Squad wet their pants, comfortable leathered interior for 5 adults and a trunk big for their luggage. A car that packs all of this but costs waaaay less than a BMW or a Charger RT-Demon-Cat and down the road the SS is a lot cheaper to own and maintain as well. If you look in a dictionary for 'Bang For The Buck', you will see a picture of a SS.
Nice write up MadMat, thanx!!

 

Love this quote at the end of the new C&D article: "But now that the SS’s days are numbered, the opinion farm is back to spreading manure: “It was too well equipped,” they say. “I totally would have been a player if Chevy had offered a stripper model without the infotainment and convenience features for around $30K.” Sure, you would’ve." Ha.

 

Are you kidding? I would have loved to purchase a low spec'd out SS. No Parking sensors, no MyLink (easy audio upgrades), no self park.

EDIT: no HUD, no RAIN sensing wipers that don't work for sh&t anyway.

 

Car and Driver 0-60 times are not a reflection of reality for owners. The magazines compete with each other to get the best time and have created scenarios that don't exist on the street to get the best time. So car and driver uses a 1 foot rollout which typically lops off around a third of a second from the measured time. i.e. they don't start timing until the car has moved forward 1 foot. This allows them to be very abusive with the clutch and not start timing until its hooked up. Also, they correct their numbers for atmospheric conditions. Car and driver does however publish an acceleration time that is meaningful to owners/street use and that is the 5-60 times. The SS got a 5.3 seconds 5-60 which is a good time for a 4000 lb sedan. Note that the car is 0.8 seconds slower 5-60 than 0-60 and that illustrates the importance of the tricks they play for the 0-60 launch.

 

Meh.... The last couple minutes of the Ignition video pretty much sums up my thoughts. It's all about the smile it puts on my face.

A 10th or 2 difference in 0-60, variances in skidpad numbers, and quarter mile times give me information and may mildly influence my decision, but in reality I'm rarely if ever going to be pushing this car to it's limits, and any acceleration numbers are going to be way slower for me right from the get go (live at 7000' elevation). For me it's all about how I like the car and how I enjoy driving it.

I'll be honest, I could have a Scat Pack Charger for about the same $ that I'm spending on the SS. However, the Charger not only carries it's weight worse than the SS (and that's apparent in normal driving, not just throwing it around mountain roads), I just don't want the look at me appearance of the Charger or Challenger. I'd rather be quick and no one notice, than every hoon on the road revving at me.

 

"If we had the chance to order our own, we’d go with basic black."

Shout out to all those PBM owners out there!

 

 

Only one car above it has the correct number of doors but is an FCA product and no manual. So yeah...

 

Glad to see they followed the other mags and tested the 2017 one last time.
But the article was a bit weak for substance. Short and sweet, but not much else.

Interesting that 2 years later they got the exact same acceleration numbers with the 2017 as they did with the 2015.
Even though the 2015 has the lighter forged wheels (about 5 lbs lighter each).
The two cars accelerated almost identically all the way up to 130 mph, but then from 130-150 the 2017 pulled a bit harder.

I also found it interesting they talked about the Orange Blast as not keeping the car under the radar, but would order black (clearly as editors there they don't own black cars, PITA to keep clean and keep swirl marks from ruining the paint in a couple years). They never mentioned anything about the Slipstream Blue car they tested as not keeping it under the radar any longer. And the point of the SlipStream Blue or Orange Blast is so it doesn't look so much like a Malibu and doesn't blend in so much like a prior model Cruze either. The slightly brighter paint colors is what helps set it apart a bit, without screaming too loud. The SS is criticized for not standing out and and looking to bland, but then criticized when they offer a color (or colors) that make it not blend like a Camry. Seemingly you can't always make everyone happy, they bitch either way.

 

"Car and Driver 0-60 times are not a reflection of reality for owners. The magazines compete with each other to get the best time and have created scenarios that don't exist on the street to get the best time. So car and driver uses a 1 foot rollout which typically lops off around a third of a second from the measured time. i.e. they don't start timing until the car has moved forward 1 foot. This allows them to be very abusive with the clutch and not start timing until its hooked up. Also, they correct their numbers for atmospheric conditions. Car and driver does however publish an acceleration time that is meaningful to owners/street use and that is the 5-60 times. The SS got a 5.3 seconds 5-60 which is a good time for a 4000 lb sedan. Note that the car is 0.8 seconds slower 5-60 than 0-60 and that illustrates the importance of the tricks they play for the 0-60 launch."



I pretty much completely disagree with the above comment, and here's why:
The magazines don't compete with each other to get the best times. Each does their own thing with their own testing procedures and publishes just that. There would be zero integrity from each magazine if they intentionally lowered their times and numbers just to try to say they did better than another magazine.
Car and Driver uses a 1 foot roll out because they made it clear they test just like it would be if on a drag strip. Motor Trend does the same thing, but Motor Trend runs backwards on the drag strip to eliminate the sticky VHT enhanced launch pad on the drag strip, so Motor Trends times are almost always a bit lower and reflect closer to what you could get on street surface.
Edmunds give times without the 1 foot roll out, but their drivers usually stink at driving.

Correcting for sea level atmospheric conditions is the best and only way to even the field.
How fair would it be for them to test one car in the nice cool weather of March, then test that cars competitor in the sweltering heat of July? Correcting for 72 degrees and sea level is the only way to be as fair as possible. Is it perfect? No. But is anything? Also keep in mind C&D can publish SLOWER times than what they got because if they were in awesome weather with below sea level DA's they'll correct the numbers to sea level which will produce slower times than what they actually achieved.

As for the abusive with the clutch comment. Well of course not all owners will do that, but many will. The point isn't to test and say, "we're going to see what the average driver/owner of these cars is going to get with an average launch" The point is, "let's see what the best time we can get is." I've gone to the drag strip or track with many of my cars and beat on them a bit to see what I could do as well, but I justify it as since I don't do it all the time, the car should be made strong enough to take it on occasion. And yes, I've launched some of the AWD car's I've owned at 5000 rpms and dumped the clutch. And guess what, when my cars were stock I've matched, and in some cases even gotten better times than the magazines paid pro drivers have gotten. Would you want to buy anything that wasn't tested to the max, but only average? It would be quite easy to argue that putting a supercharger on a engine designed to be naturally aspirated is far, far more abusive and is full time abuse, compared to the occasional and short term abuse of a hard launch at a drag strip.

Lastly it's not "tricks they play" to get the best times, it's getting the best times possible like any person interested in seeing what the best times possible they could get are. The 5-60 time is what's really pretty useless. When racing who rolls along at 3-4 mph, then punches it to see how fast they did from 5-60?
Many years ago, and on several occasions I wrote Car and Driver and asked them to do acceleration times that were less abusive just to see what it would be. It was all the same testing procedures but launching without revving the engine up at all, just releasing the clutch at just above idle and going (or in the case of an automatic, just taking foot off the brake and getting on the gas), that would give you your answer and my curiosity on that, but really you are either racing and want to do your best, or you're not, so what's the point of a soft launch time?

The fact they got almost the identical times across the board between the 2015 SS and the 2017 SS shows the consistency of their testing and abilities and the consistency of the LS3 and the Chevy SS. That alone is pretty cool, as so often there can be .2 seconds and 2 mph or more difference between two or three of the exact same cars on the exact same track on the exact same day with the exact same driver.
So gotta give props to the SS for being so consistent.
I just wish the article was a bit more in depth, and a bit more of a nice send off for the car.

 

Great counter-arguments, clearly written. A healthy debate and respect for opposing opinions is nice. Thank you.

I agree that the 0-60 times are a good measurement of what's the best achievable acceleration time to a rather low speed, short of dropping the car off a cliff in a vacuum. Because the speed and distance of this test is so low, the launch is large part of the measurement. The fastest launch is what can be quite abusive to the drivetrain and not very repeatable for an owner on the street. Any owner that repeats the fastest possible launch regularly on the street is going to quickly wind up with a damaged drivetrain or tickets for things like reckless driving or exhibition of speed or street racing. That's what I meant by not being reflective of reality for owners. Reality for car magazines that simply give the car back after they have broken it or shortened its useful life, but not for owners that live with the vehicle long term. The 5-60 takes the launch out of the measurement and IMO is a better indicator of accessible accelerative performance on the street. That is the value of the soft launch measurement.

The difference in times between the 0-60 and the 5-60 are not that large for the SS. This indicates the car has good low end torque and even when "caught off guard" in the wrong gear for maximum acceleration, the SS will accelerate briskly. Cars that have large differences between 0-60 and 5-60 will often not be that fast on the street as the range of conditions to accelerate briskly are quite narrow.

 

Great counter-arguments, clearly written. A healthy debate and respect for opposing opinions is nice. Thank you.

.

The difference in times between the 0-60 and the 5-60 are not that large for the SS. This indicates the car has good low end torque and even when "caught off guard" in the wrong gear for maximum acceleration, the SS will accelerate briskly.

I agree with this observation 100%. there have been plenty of times when I have needed to react quickly to the traffic flow and was able to accelerate comfortably in the gear I had just been cruising in. Now when I upgrade to forced induction.....

 

Whats with the 70-0 braking distances??? That means nothing to me.

If were still using the standard 0-60 for accel, we need to still be using the standard 60-0 for decel.

Ive also do not acknowledge Motor Trend or Car and Driver as perfect sources of info. Some of their numbers have been way off before.

 

Whats with the 70-0 braking distances??? That means nothing to me. ... we need to still be using the standard 60-0 for decel.
...

Hmm, I appreciate stopping distances from higher speeds much more than from slower speeds. Since kinetic energy increases with the square of the speed, I think it is precisely WHEN braking from higher speeds (and repeatedly so) that the true performance and engineering of the braking system is evidenced. Whereas, I expect the delta between cars braking from lower speeds would be much less significant, and thus less capable of showing distinction.

.02

 

I have no beef with the rollout, because they are measuring the quarter mile time, and it gives you a good benchmark that you can try out for yourself as there are dragstrips all over that an owner can go to to test out their car. The 0-60 is just part of their quarter mile run that they make, and they present it along with the other time to speed measurements. It may not be nice on the drivetrain, but when I run hard I'm not going to baby off the line and go full throttle at 5 MPH, I'm going to launch that sucker hard, whether at the dragstrip or the street. If you never launch hard then 5-60 makes sense as a measurement, but to me it doesn't. As said above 30-100, 60-100 are better gauges for me as a realistic speed range for a run when you go hard from a roll than 5-60 is. I do understand though that most people didn't buy the SS for a drag car (I sure didn't), so 0-60 plays very little into how owners place their value in the SS and its performance meterics. The .96G and 70-0 in 156 feet are indicative of how the SS has handling the belies its size and weight.

 

The mags used to be a bit slower with the 1/4 times reported, because they were testing on their own courses, which were not prepped drag strips. Traps were usually close but ET tended to be a few tenths slower (I remember some turning 13.7s in an LS1 Camaro SS, and then Muscle Mustangs got the same press car to run a 12.8 at Etown). I suppose this rollout method is perhaps a way to normalize for a lack of launching surface.