Even on bumpy roads, the Camaro is superior to the Mustang By David Booth, Driving.ca - There's no great mystery to evaluating a convertible, at least not a convertible with a sedan or coupe sibling. Other than niggling details such as how well the droptop roof seals and how well the outside world - rain, snow, noise, etc. is isolated by the removable top, you're basically searching for what performance compromises have been made in order to satiate the quest for al fresco motoring.
Said compromises used to - and still often do - come in the form of reduced body control. Lopping off the roof of a perfectly good automobile is much like cracking the top off a soft-boiled egg. What was once an incredibly rigid structure is now but - pardon the bad pun - a shell of its former self.
An automobile's chassis - now sans toit - becomes a far more flimsy framework, the loss of the roof allowing the body to twist and shake like Jerry Lee Lewis in full Great Balls of Fire form.
Manufacturers construct all manner of reinforcements to compensate. There are strengthening beams below the chassis, suspension tower struts atop and all manner of thicker steel throughout the body to try to compensate for Humpty Dumpty's more fragile state. Despite the extra metal, however, it's almost impossible for a convertible to match its coupe sibling's stiffness (usually referred to as torsional rigidity).
Rarer still are the convertibles that try to do so with the same stiff suspension as their more rigid siblings (stiff suspension, as you can imagine will upset a limper chassis more easily, hence the reason so many soft-tops have more compliant suspensions than their rigid-roofed cousins).
No wonder then that Chevrolet is making much of the fact that the suspension of its newly decapitated Camaro is exactly the same as the hard-top version.
"To compensate for the reduced structure of an open car, engineers often will make the suspension softer, making the convertible a boulevard cruiser," says Al Oppenheiser, the Camaro's chief engineer.
"Instead, we took the more difficult - but better - path of bolstering the structure rather than softening the suspension. We didn't change a strut, bushing or spring rate from the Camaro coupe."
The bolstering takes the form of a beefy tower-to-tower suspension brace under the hood, additional bracing for the transmission tunnel and further "V" bracing under the front and rear underbodies. It's nothing fancy.
Indeed, these are fairly straightforward changes, yet, according to Chevy's engineers, the Camaro's chassis is stiffer than the comparable Mustang and equal to that of the much-vaunted BMW 328 Cabriolet.
And, although it's less rigid than the hardrop version, the difference goes largely unnoticed. For better or for worse, the convertible's ride and handling is pretty much the same as the coupe's. In other words, on a smooth road, the handling is precise without the ride being overly stiff and the steering is well weighted if a little numb. Even on bumpy roads, the Camaro Convertible is superior to the Mustang thanks to its more modern independent rear suspension rather than the Ford's refined but still archaic solid rear axle.
The one disappointment is the brakes on the base V6 version. As this is the suppossedly less sporty model, the LS and LT are saddled with single piston brakes front and rear (the monster-motored SS gets four-pot Brembos up front) and smallish 321-millimetre ventilated discs. The result is a wooden feeling I thought GM had banished from its fleet - or at least its sports car fleet. Here, the extra metal - 112 kilograms of it - that GM added to boost that stiffness exacts a penalty.
General Motors' bean counters contend the V6-powered convertible is less about performance and more about style. But the V6 model deserves better, if for no other reason than the fact the V6 is plenty sporty. Its 312 horse-power would have been the equal of the V8-powered Mustang GT a few years ago and, more importantly than just the numbers (it also pumps out 278 pound-feet of torque and accelerates the 1,808-kilogram LS to 100 kilometres an hour in just 6.2 seconds, only 0.2 of a second behind the hardtop) is that it feels sporty.
The V8, of course, is sportier still. With 426 hp on tap (400 in the L99 automatic version), the LS3 V8-powered SS has enough moxie to warrant the Camaro nameplate. Traditionalists need not fret that GM has watered down the Camaro as even the heavier convertible version of the SS blasts to 100 kilometres an hour in five seconds.
I would, however, recommend sticking with the manual-equipped SS. Not only does it boast 26 more hp and a noticeably more evocative exhaust note, but the V8's six-speed autobox is not nearly as sophisticated as the V6's automatic.
The last part of the equation, for any convertible, is styling. Here, the Camaro impresses.
Unlike the interior, which is somewhat bland, the Camaro's exterior is always striking whether in hardtop or convertible format.
With its roof up, the Convertible looks every bit as menacing as the hardtop that wows in the Transformer movies.
Top down, it's a little more feminine, probably a good thing since females are a large part of the prospective audience.
Drop-top roof may be stylish, but it is not as convenient as it could be. Yes, it's electrically powered, but it still requires manual removal of the tonneau cover as well as manual connection to the windshield's header. And though it's quick to stow - less than 20 seconds - it takes longer to install.
These, I suspect, will be minor details.
The Camaro already outsells the Mustang in the United States (the Mustang still sells better here in the Great White Frozen North) - hard-top, convertible and even the Shelby variants - with just one model.
Chevrolet marketing mavens estimate the convertible will result in an additional 20 per cent sales increase. There's little reason to doubt them.
The Camaro ragtop will go on sale next month and will start at $33,995.
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