You can’t make everybody happy when you write a comparison test, but is it possible to make nobody happy?
The Battle Of The Misfits was an attempt to find a proper context for the amazing but expensive and limited-purpose Camaro Z/28. All the other rags just tested it against the GT-R, I think. Which might have been a more successful strategy.
You’d think that in any comparison where the Viper and GT-R lose the fanboys will be out for blood — and a quick check of the Viper Alley and GT-R Club shows you’d be right. But what about the Camaro guys? At least they were happy, right? Hell no they weren’t. Some of my favorite comments:
Thankfully Gurney was there to babysit the children. The tire excusist whining at the end was pathetic.
It’s refreshing to see the car’s superiority trump an otherwise biased Baruth.
I always notice the swipes publication writers take at the Camaro. Clearly way too much car for them to deal with.
Just because you know the alphabet, that doesn’t make you into a Hemingway
Two of us were thrashing the Z/28 around Thunderhill, over two days, and the high temps ranged from 102 to 106 degrees. No worries; I think operator error is to blame for the quote you posted…
And the best of all:
Translated from BitchSpeak to English: Camaros are for uneducated people who do not deserve a car like this.
When you compress it to “BitchSpeak” and capitalize the “S”, Sir, your fedora is showing.
Oh well. This relatively recent phenomenon of enthusiast-forum members complaining because their car didn’t win the comparison by more is happening everywhere you go now. The resurrection of this relatively old article to the R&T web front page will just fan the flames. I’ve heard a lot of carping about the photography as well, although I think Tobias did a good job of capturing the distant, alien qualities of the weird desert moonscape that surrounds the Thermal Club.
With all the above said, I’ll still remember this as one of my favorite tests ever. The R&T guys took a chance on me with this one. I was about a hundred days out from my car crash at that point and I could still feel my ribs and pelvis grinding when I moved. It was a painful and difficult trip and when I sat in the Viper for the first time I strongly doubted my ability to give the car the drive it deserved. As it turns out, I needn’t have worried; I was only in pain and misery outside the cars. Behind the wheel, around the track, I was at home again for the first time in months. So even though the whole world hated this review, I can rest easy; the trip, and the text, are just fine with me.
Except.
The winner?
It should have been the Viper.
Bad press is better than no press, right?
I’m just pissed American manufacturers don’t seem to give a shit about RHD markets… the manufacturers announce it but it is just one lie after another:
http://www.livelifedrive.com/malaysia/news/view/377/gm-right-hand-drive-chevrolet-camaro-on-its-way
http://www.autoevolution.com/news/chevrolet-will-make-right-hand-drive-variant-of-corvette-c7-stingray-53932.html
I would buy one of those Vipers tomorrow if it didn’t cost me an extra $100k to convert to RHD…
We can buy Nissan GT-R’s no problem and every single thing from the German menu but not a single US manufacturer (save Jeep) seems to care about those export markets.
To be fair, I’d imagine that it is pretty easy to get RHD GT-Rs because the Japanese market is also RHD.
The second link about the C7 is rather amusing. The title proudly exclaims “Chevrolet Will Make Right-Hand Drive Variant of Corvette C7 Stingray!”, but three paragraphs into the article, the Chief engineer said there is no plan to build RHD corvettes in the short term. In the long term he said it is something they want to do, but not necessarily will do.
That is a clickbait article title if I ever saw one.
Yeah but it is not just the GT-R, the *entire* German menu is available in RHD (even limited edition models like the BMW 1M come in RHD), not to mention all the premium stand alone sports car makers (porsche, ferrari, lamborghini and aston) also offer their entire catalogue in RHD. Yet not a *single* American sports car is offered in RHD.
Ill give Ford a little credit since too late is better than nothing:
http://paultan.org/2014/08/19/ford-mustang-right-hand-drive/
But I can’t believe the complete cognitive dissonance on the part of US manufacturers when it comes to building RHD versions of their sports cars. For example, the Grand Cherokee SRT8 is sold out in South Africa and retails for 30% more than it would in the US:
http://www.gumtree.co.za/a-cars-bakkies/centurion/jeep-grand-cherokee-srt8/1001182982040910013612309
Yet somehow, between all of Oz and NZ, southern Africa, Singapore, HK, India and the UK, they can’t find a market for a handful of RHD corvettes/camaros/vipers…?
I certainly have no access to the market studies, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the simple answer is in fact a true lack of demand across all RHD markets, and the economies of scale involve. Anecdotally, I did live in Germany for several years, and I found corvettes to be, at best, a very low volume, boutique car, with a niche audience on the European continent. I would have to believe the potential market for corvettes is even smaller in the UK. But that is just the Corvette of course.
But using the corvette as an example, the corvette is manufactured in one relatively low-volume factory in Bowling Green, and without data, I’m forced to assume the capital costs for opening another assembly line for RHD vehicles wouldn’t justify the sales volume they would go on to generate in RHD markets.
As for BMW (I’m sure Audi and Merc are similar), they sell over a 100K BMWs/year in the UK alone.
https://www.press.bmwgroup.com/united-kingdom/pressDetail.html?title=bmw-group-reports-record-sales-to-remain-uk%E2%80%99s-number-one-premium-car-company&outputChannelId=8&id=T0135845EN_GB&left_menu_item=node__804
So, when BMW is selling 1000s of BMW 114i, 116d and 118d models, I don’t imagine it is too hard to tool up a few BMW 1 Series M coupes for the market as well same with 3er and 5er BMWs.
Even the BMW X5, which is only manufactured in Spartanburg, SC, sells 12-21K units in the UK alone according to the link, and presumably sells even more in in the other RHD markets. Again the volume would seemingly justify production. Of note, 12-21K units/year is more than the total production of some recent corvette model years.
Finally, I would imagine quite the opposite is true for the exotics like Lambo and Ferrari. Those exotics command such a premium, they have such prestige, and have such a large profit margin per unit compared to vehicles like the corvette and viper that they can cater to all markets. Everything they produce is small scale, and aren’t manufactured in the same way as a corvette or viper so I don’t suspect the downside of producing those RHD exotics is the same.
Now, none of that addresses why Jeep is successful, or how Ford is going global with the Mustang. They certainly are fair points and valid examples. I suppose my only real point other than general discussion is that I’m personally not surprised at the lack of RHD corvettes and vipers, and my sense (read guess) is that Dodge and Chevy would loose money if there were.
Please excuse all my typos, I knocked that last post on my phone.
The real problem with the equation is the UK is by far the biggest RHD market for US sports cars and the UK allows the manufacturers to sell LHD spec cars without issues. Chrysler UK for example even sold the last generation Viper in LHD spec at UK dealerships, for similar prices to the US. So they can sell those cars in the UK (vast majority of affluent RHD buyers) without bothering to do a conversion, UK buyers are just inconvenienced, but they can have the car if they want. For the rest like Australia and Southern Africa, LHD imports are ‘strengstens verboten’ (one of the 399 Enzo Ferraris was sold in Cape Town and almost had to be sent back). You MUST have a ($100k) conversion done (and then pay another 100% tax) to bring in a vette or a viper, but unlike Germany where everyone is a snob towards American cars except a few enthusiasts (I’m originally from Munich so I can say that…), there is still a HUGE love for American muscle in Oz and in SA where I currently live. In fact I have personally seen a few dozen RHD converted vettes and vipers that cost the local owner the equivalent of $250k and v6 camaros for $100k.
Another interesting example is Cadillac. GM (which btw OWNED the SA and Australian markets 50 years ago) decided to reintroduce Cadillac in SA from 2006 and called it quits in 2012. Why? They thought they could compete with BMW and Mercedes here (which btw also have ginormous factories here that churn out 3ers and C-classes even for US consumption) with their lowest rent models. What people would have bought in droves was the Escalade (made famous by every Hollywood export and the RHD Hummer H3 also strong seller here) and maybe the full sized sedan. Instead what they sent was the worst of the Opel rebadges, those cheap rental car type compact cars (can’t be bothered to look up their stupid 3letter names) and that little 7 seater mini SUV. Total #fail, and it squandered a huge opportunity to capitalize on a halo effect and the love local consumers have for Americana.
I’m sure they could do a few thousand Camaros (I hope the mustang will prove it) and a few hundred vettes per year, not much, but it would be a big way to halo the other gm stuff in this part of the world (awful ‘world car’ light trucks and the Chevy cruze and Opels) which currently makes the brand seem like a 3rd rate contender. Got to find growth somewhere considering the subprime bubble and 99month leases and channel stuffing have it’s limits at home. This is low hanging ‘growth’ fruit.
Case in point, some idiot spent upwards of $100k used converting and importing this 2012 v6 Camaros into SA and has now listed it for sale for ~$75k (big currency drop recently also so would be even more).
http://www.gumtree.co.za/a-cars-bakkies/umhlanga/2012-chevrolet-camaro-coupe-bumble-bee/1001200017570910199998309
See what I mean, 2 giant missed opportunities for GM here:
1. Not selling a handful of RHD conversions themselves (sure it costs a lot but the buyer will pay 4x what that Camaro is ‘worth’)
2. Missing the opportunity to capitalize on a way to grow the brand with halo cars in a big growth market like Southern Africa
@Rock36
You don’t need a separate assembly line for RHD. The packaging of the car must be such that you can have the steering on either side and that is decided while developing the car.
Can’t tell you how many times I have seen “Camero” for sale - so I agree about how half the time actual owners can’t even spell the name right.
Z-28 is one sharp and impressive car. $75k? No thanks.
Would have been a great start to a “marriage strike” article.
How much of your love for the Viper is because it’s actually that good and how much of it is irrational?
The Viper is my kind of car and the way it responds at high speed works well for me.
It’s not for everyone.
But it’s for me.
clearly you’ve not witnessed Apple and Android fanboys battle it out.
Talk about “srs bsns.”
Considering the reactions I receive from long time Kindle fans when I explain why Kobo’s reader is the only choice for me (more non-DRM support than any other reader; full ownership of any ebook I pay for) I’m not surprised at how vitriolic the exchanges are concerning personal choice in smartphone operating systems.
For me the Viper is the American version of the car I wished Ferrari still made…
This is an ironic turn of events now that the Chevy rolls on the finest rubber. In contrast to the corvette vs Ferrari comparos of old where the vette rolled on Goodyear runflats and the Ferrari got some good track rubber.
It just goes to show how important tires are to the driving experience.
Spot on observation.
Back to Jack’s point, there is simply no way to stem the inevitable wailing, moaning & gnashing of teeth when insecurity seeks confirmation (IOW, confirmation bias is am impossible bitch of a problem for any reviewer to deal with), no matter how threading-the-needle and exquisitely parsing & subtle the language used in the final analysis is.
That’s why I prefer the blunt hammer approach: The Joe Dirt Dozens Thousandaire Speciale’ is a fat, bloated, heavy, ugly & oddly still angular vehicle with incredibly plastic-y interior accoutrements (especially at its price point), that is to be quickly eaten, digested & expelled for the sake of off-putting lingering taste, no matter how fast a time it achieves around the Arby’sKing, thanks to a stompin’ V8 and go fast suspension kart parts.
But . . . but . . . the Z/28 was always the top handling and performance package.
I remember seeing an early rendering of what a new-generation Camaro should look like, shortly after the prior-gen F-Body’s LS1-capped swan song. A friend on the HTML chat board said, “that thing could handle like a bucket of snot in the corners and it will still sell millions.” Well, its chassis is apparently as capable as the rest of the field now, but that still doesn’t satisfy fans of the brand for whom absolute supremacy in all categories is the only acceptable outcome.
Good article; “warts and all” is the best way to present modern automotive offerings.
The best was that the Aston felt the fastest to a passenger, and then there was the acceleration data to back it up.
How do you make a car feel fast? Change in acceleration, and high speed instability.
I truly wish a “double blind” test was possible with cars and that a magazine would actually have the balls to try one. (see Pear Audio who refused to do James Randi’s speaker cable challenge )
What would writers say based on driving experience alone without being able to pull out the same old tired memes/stereotypes about each model? (thankfully you don’t seem to do this).
This business relies so heavily on the stereotypes that when you declare one of them invalid, people will attack you for it even if they’ve never even touched the car you just spent two hundred laps driving.
I agree with you, a double blind test would be the way to go. Maybe when we all get taps into our neural network there would be a way to “edit” the dashboard and proportions out?
Jack, surely you can appreciate that the quote “This Camaro is simply too good for a fan base that misspells the model’s name half the time” is more than a little insulting to the GM fanboys?
Too good for a particular fan base? Is R&T now the arbiter of who *deserves* a given car, with that judgement based primarily on their spelling abilities?
The original quote may have been intended as sarcasm, but that often gets lost in print and on the internet.
It’s typical Krewson. He was a writer for the Onion and he likes to push the boundaries a bit.
Not to get off topic here, but is this the same comparison from the June issue with more/different words? I wondered when i got my June issue why the BR-Z had made the cover but was completely absent from the write up. I will surely never understand the exciting world Magazine editing.
Due to some fueling issues, the BR-Z wasn’t able to participate fully in the testing, but it was still included in the photography due to a bit of a disconnect between the creative personnel.