2011 Chevrolet Camaro SS Convertible
by Jim Prueter

Camaro adds a great-looking convertible
The much-anticipated return of the Chevrolet Camaro has now been on the market for a couple of years and is selling we ll —so well, in fact, that it now boasts sales bragging rights over competitors Ford Mustang and Dodge Challenger for rear-wheel-drive muscle cars. And while Mustang has always offered a convertible, it’s new this spring for Camaro.

As with the hardtop offering, the Camaro convertible is available with either two engine choices: the 312-horsepower 3.6-liter V6 six-speed manual transmission or six-speed automatic ($995), or the optional 6.2-liter V8 that delivers 426-horsepower when mated to the six-speed manual shifter or 400-horsepower with the six-speed automatic.

With either engine choice the convertible Camaro has a hefty starting price of $30,125 for the V6 model, $6,450 more than a hardtop Camaro LS coupe. Our V8 Camaro SS jumps the starting price to $40,500 including shipping, $5,355 more than a hardtop Carmaro SS. 

Chevy designers did an excellent job of building an attractive convertible. It isn’t as easy as cutting the roof of a hardtop off and replacing it with folding canvas.  We can cite numerous manufacturers who didn’t get the convertible design right, resulting in the uglification of a car that otherwise might have been pretty good.

The other malady all too often inherent with convertibles is that once the roof is cut off you remove an enormous amount of structural stability to keep the vehicle stiff. To compensate, Chevy put a very thick stiffening brace from shock tower to shock tower on the front of the car. Pop the hood and the brace is easily visible across the back of the engine just in front of the firewall. Chevy also added braces behind the rear seat and elsewhere resulting in a vehicle with absolute minimal cowl shake or body shimmies. Believe me, this isn’t always the case and is actually more the exception than the rule.

Lowering or raising the top is easy and can be done without leaving the driver’s seat. Just unlatch one lock located on the windshield frame above the inside rearview mirror, hold the button for the electrically folding top and in just 16 seconds the top is in place. A canvas convertible boot hides the medal framing and bracing to give the sporty Camaro a finished look. Of course, you will have to exit the vehicle to either attach or remove the canvas boot.

We found the interior of our Camaro disappointing with mostly hard, cheap-looking plastics, and poor fit and finish with noticeable panel gaps. Control knobs for the audio and climate control system were large and straightforward, but again had an economy look and feel. There’s a standard tilt-and-telescope steering wheel, which is noticeably thick and included steering-wheel-mounted controls. 

Our test car came equipped the optional $1,200 RS package with larger 20-inch tires, painted aluminum wheels, HID headlamps, unique tail lamps and center-console-mounted instrument cluster that seemed to be lifted directly out of the classic 1969 Camaro RS. It looked great and performance enthusiasts will appreciate the operational gauges, but we found them hard to see and read from the driver’s seat.   

Front seats were large and comfortable, but we wished for a lumbar adjustment. Because the seating position is very low and the window line is higher, shorter drivers and front passengers will find visibility challenging. Small outside rearview mirrors and the wider canvas top only add to visibility woes. 

Typical with convertibles, the rear seat is especially small. To make room for the lowered convertible top the trunk and trunk opening are both very small and packing luggage for more than a weekend getaway will necessitate using the backseat. With the top down there’s less than 8 cubic feet of luggage space, expanding to just over 10 with the top up.

Our other gripe with the interior was what we found to be the absolute most useless sun visors we’ve found on any vehicle. They’re about the size of the inside rearview mirror, and not only don’t block the sun, they don’t swivel from side to side.

So what is it like to drive the massively powered 426-horsepower V8 Camaro musclecar? In a word, disappointing. It was hard to believe this is the same engine that powers the Corvette. 

The engine revs slow, very slow, and power isn’t felt until RPMs reach almost 5,000. The transmission gears are extremely tall with exceptionally long first and second gears. Even with the traction and electronic stability control turned off we found it next to impossible to break traction from a dead stop. Even passing on the highway most often took a two or three-gear downshift.

The 2011 Chevy Camaro convertible comes standard with antilock disc brakes, stability control with traction control, dual front and front-seat side airbags, and LATCH system for child seats. The Camaro convertible has not yet been crash tested by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety or the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration as of this writing. 

The more we drove the Camaro, the more apparent it became that this is a considerably large car and not the lightweight, nimble Camaro of old. Handling is less agile and high-performance enthusiasts will quickly find the powertrain is rather lackluster. Still we found the exterior looks high on the head-turning scale and you will certainly get noticed. But there are too many trade-offs that can make living with the Camaro on a daily basis a difficult task.