Road Test:

1999 Chevrolet Camaro SS
Plenty of Bang, But the Buck Stops There

By John Clor

No muscle car test could ever be complete without mention of the two perennial favorite combatants, the Chevy Camaro and Ford Mustang. This pair has been pitted against each other since the beginning of the pony-car era itself, so continuing the tradition to include the current offerings only makes sense. Except that most automotive testers usually compare cars of similar performance levels, and in this case, that wasn't possible.

Let us explain. A few years back, to get an SS version of the Z28 Camaro you had to have your Chevy dealer check the "SS RPO" box on your new vehicle order form. Chevrolet would then build your Z28 to order at the St. Therese factory in Canada, and drop-ship the brand-new Z28 out to a shop down the road called SLP (for Street Legal Performance), owned by noted GM tuner Ed Hamburger.

SLP would add all the extra performance goodies in its SS package (licensed to and sold by Chevrolet as a regular production option), and then send the car back to Chevy for delivery to the selling dealer. SLP also did most of the marketing on the SS, so Chevy didn't normally order SLP's cars for its journalist test fleet. SLP's own press fleet was limited to a single car or two, so auto writers had to wait in line before getting an SS. Because the SS model was factory-shipped, few people knew -- or even cared -- about this little performance detour to SLP.

On the other hand, the hottest Mustang -- save for some exotics sold by tuners Kenny Brown and Steve Saleen -- was (and still is) the factory-built SVT Cobra developed by the guys at Ford's Special Vehicle Team. While they're available only through SVT-certified Ford dealers (about 700 of the better than 4,200 Ford stores in North America are SVT dealers), Cobras come down the same assembly line as more mundane Mustangs. And despite being a limited-edition model (about 10,000 per year), Cobras were made available to journalists across the country.

Then things changed. A couple of years ago, Chevy bought the rights to SLP's package and took the SS "in-house," meaning it's built solely at the F-body factory and marketed by Chevrolet itself. Consequently, there are plenty of SS Camaros around to test. And this year, Ford's redesigned-for-'99 Cobra was found to have some engine parts that were not up to spec, causing the motors not to make the advertised 320 horsepower. Since May, all '99 SVT Mustang Cobras have been pulled from Ford press fleets across the country until a fix is completed. Meaning, no vehicle loans to journalists for road tests of any kind this summer.

So we decided to go ahead and pit Chevy's fire-breathing, 320-horse V8 Camaro Z28 SS against Ford's mainstream Mustang GT, which makes a mere 260 horses from its much smaller V8. Not fair, you say? Maybe not, but in reality it's your only purchase choice as of this writing. Ford's current hold on SVT Cobras includes the sale or delivery of all 1999 cars in stock, so the Mustang GT and Camaro SS are, indeed, the hottest versions of their respective nameplates that you can actually buy right now. Besides, the standard Z28 -- which IS the Mustang GT's direct competitor -- already owns a whopping 45-horse advantage over its Ford counterpart, so what's another 15 ponies among enemies?

Let's face it, ever since GM replaced the old L98 350 V8 with first the LT1, and more recently the LS1 5.7-liter, the F-body Camaro/Firebird twins have owned the pony-car performance crown. And ever since Mustang moved away from the venerable 5.0-liter V8 in 1996 for the 4.6-liter modular overhead-cam engine family, Ford fans have been taking it on the chin at the stoplights. But for those of you thinking you can stop reading right now because you've got the outcome of this test pretty much figured out already -- well, you've been reading far too many buff books.

The buff-book writers will tell you the Camaro SS simply spanks the bejabbers out of any Mustang in every performance category. Duh! So who honestly thinks the 60-horse advantage an SS has on a GT wouldn't show up in the acceleration numbers? But our SS (admittedly a fairly tired press car) proved only a few ticks quicker than the Mustang in our zero-to-60 mph tests and less than a half-second faster in the quarter-mile. And while the Camaro exhibited marginally better grip on the skidpad, the Ford outperformed the Chevy in our 60-to-zero braking tests and its handling proved more predictable out on the racetrack. Oh, did we mention our GT stickered for nearly $4,000 less than the SS?

That's not to say the Camaro didn't perform well, for its numbers were in pure muscle-car territory. For that it can thank the LS1 engine, which -- as it is for Corvette -- is the heart and soul of the SS. As our testers put it, "the LS1 is the paradigm of a muscle-car engine. … Grunt can be found from 1,000 rpm up to redline." Another wrote, "Gobs of torque that you can feel in every gear." Still another, "True muscle-car power." Indeed, we found this award-winning motor amazingly flexible, turning out a notoriously fat band of torque that would be the envy of many of the famed muscle cars of yesteryear. These days, few production V8s can outmuscle an LS1.

Our SS also came equipped with the Borg-Warner T-56 six-speed manual, the same heavy-duty tranny found in Corvettes and Vipers. Some staffers felt its second-to-fourth gear "skip-shift" feature was annoying, but others noted that spirited driving deactivates the emissions function, so it wasn't a problem. Nearly all our testers noticed vast amounts of driveline shake and shudder emanating right up through the baseball-sized shift knob. And most weren't fond of the car's clutch action, best described as feeling "heavy going in, and loose coming out." But we discounted some of that because not all F-bodies we've driven have exhibited that problem.

Outside, the SS gained high marks from most of us for its swoopy styling, clean, rakish stance and purposeful lines. Muscle cars are supposed to look mean, and this one screams its sex appeal, right down to its functional hood scoop. But the inside was not winning many friends. The Camaro is more difficult to get into and out of than the taller, more upright Mustang. With the SS sitting so low to the ground, you kind of plop down into the rather flat seats and drive in somewhat of a reclining position. Back seats and a trunk aren't big selling points for muscle cars -- and the Camaro is no exception. The back seats are tiny, and the cargo hold is deep but quite small for a hatchback car.

Interior design came in for less discussion than its execution, thanks to some intelligent ergonomics. But when it came to the look and feel inside, driver comments ranged from "cheesy materials abound," to "there's a total lack of refinement in here." Assorted squeaks and rattles and large amounts of tire and road noise booming off the rear hatch backlight sure didn't add to any illusions of build quality. But that's of little consequence to speed freaks.

Yet perhaps the biggest disappointment about the Camaro SS was its ride. Its chassis features upper and lower control arms in front, which keep the tires in better contact with the road than the more popular MacPherson struts. And its live rear axle is not only located by traditional trailing links, but by a special long torque arm and a Panhard rod added in for good measure. With stiff coils and front-and-rear antiroll bars, the SS is known for some amazingly flat cornering ability on a smooth racetrack.

The problem is, we were testing it on the challenging, undulating surfaces of The Streets of Willow race circuit. And our on-road evaluation had wound us through some tricky canyon two-lanes north of Los Angeles. In both instances, the Camaro's suspension was hard-pressed to afford a compromise between ride and handling. Most drivers found it downright twitchy at the limits, and some noted the car would bump-steer in cobbled fast turns.

Reading the copious notes of our testers would have you believe they were willing to overlook the Camaro's shortcomings in favor of its intoxicating power and give the nod to the SS over the Mustang. But tallying up their evaluation score sheets showed the Ford racked up more overall points than its more powerful Chevy rival. And that's EXACTLY how you, the consumers, have been voting with your wallets for the past several years.

The fact is -- power and performance be damned -- the Mustang has not only been outdistancing the Camaro on the sales charts by tens of thousands of units each year, but for 1999 it will have outsold both the F-body cars combined by a 2-to-1 margin! So even though the SS is wickedly fast, today's consumers seem to prefer a muscle car that can balance its racetrack abilities with some real-world functionality on the street. Somehow, the buff-book boys overlook that every time.

Funny thing, too, is that while Mustang has been winning the sales war, the enthusiast press has been trumpeting the Camaro (and sister Firebird) as the best performance value on the face of the planet, the most bang for the buck, the most go for the dough -- all thanks to its low base MSRP. But this year, the GT's base price is actually cheaper than the Z28 when you factor in the delivery charge. And we suggest you check those "as tested" prices the next time you read a buff-book Camaro vs. Mustang comparo. You'll find that more often than not, even the high-end SVT Cobra comes out a few thousand dollars less than a comparably equipped SS. A low base price doesn't mean much if the things most people want and buy are extra-cost options. Maybe it's time you look elsewhere for the real value story.

The way we figure it, the nearly $4,000 difference in price between our Mustang GT and Camaro SS works out costing you about $1,000 for each tenth of a second advantage on the dragstrip. If that sounds like a powerful bargain to you, then the Chevy is your clear choice. But if some of your car's muscle needs to be spent as a daily driver, then the Mustang makes living with its performance compromises a little easier to deal with.