A politically correct muscle car? Meet the 2010 Chevrolet Camaro

JIM MCLAUGHLIN/FLORIDA WEEKLY Test driving the 2010 Camaro at Southwest Florida International Airport on Monday. Never let 'em tell you they can't bring a dinosaur back to life.

And anybody who says you can't go back in time — well, he never climbed behind the wheel of a black-as-obsidian 2010 Camaro LT, Chevrolet's big, beautiful, brawny new baby (it missed the intended class of 2009), shimmering in the morning sun like the offspring of Sex and Science.

Although the little six-cylinder, 3.6L engine can only muster 304 horsepower, the new Camaro in a more powerful incarnation, the 426-horsepower V-8 SS, will serve as the prestigious pace car at the Indianapolis 500 later this month.

Pitiful, isn't it? Only 304 horses. But they'll do.

This baby has enough kick to jump you from zero to 60 in six seconds. It's the same engine Chevy puts in its Traverse and the Malibu. Of course, that pales in comparison with the four-second sprint to 60 you can make in the SS, equipped with the engine that goes in the Corvette.

And get this: The 2010 Camaro can deliver 25-29 mpg on the highway and 17-18 in the city, according to company literature. That doesn't sound like a dinosaur, does it? No, it sounds like a politically correct nod to conserving our dwindling and highly pollutant fossil fuels.

Which gives rise to this question: Why build a muscle car in the 21st century?

The obvious answer is that people want it. But nobody quite knows why they want it, at least nobody who was standing on the edge of a 250-yard stretch of cement in what used to be the shortterm parking lot of the old Southwest Florida International Airport earlier this week, lining up to test drive the first its kind to arrive in the region.

Not far away stood its cinnamon-red ancestor, almost dating to the origin of the species: a 1970 Z-28 Camaro that came out of the factory with 360 horses and the ability to get almost 13 mpg, according to its owner, Peter Modys, a Lee County Port Authority official who loves cars.

Even with that muscle, the Z-28 might only reach 90 or 100 mph, while the 2010 LT could probably crack 160 mph, Mr. Modys noted.

So there they were: Almost 40 years of American muscle cars parked side by side. Why? Salesman Brian Doody took a shot at the answer: "There will always be those guys who want this — you know, boys with their toys," he said.

This week, more Camaros will come, and — at $27,000 or so for this version — they'll probably go rather quickly, predicted Jamie Layne, owner of Victory Layne Chevrolet in Fort Myers. Her market will be mostly men ranging in age from their 20s to their 70s, she said. But women are going to buy this Camaro, too, she added. The evidence stood beside her with a hand in the air.

Ms. Layne has recently taken over her late father's Chevrolet dealership (he was Ronnie Layne). It was her idea, she said, to bring the 2010 Camaro off the lot, leave the keys in the ignition and the door open, and invite a variety of unstable, erratic, ill-equipped, emotionally suggestive, fantasy-addicted and potentially very dangerous drivers from various and questionable walks of life (cops, reporters, account executives, kids, Chevy reps, men, women) to try it out.

Part of the appeal of this car — which sets up a head-to-head competition with Ford's Mustang and the Dodge Charger — is "speed at a price they can afford," Ms. Layne explained, and "pretty decent bells and whistles."

The car offers both automatic and manual control of the transmission, for example — if you shift out of Drive and into Manual with the stick, and keep your hands at 10 and 2 on the steering wheel, you can downshift with a button under your left hand and shift up with a button under your right.

When a reporter did this, he accelerated from 0 to 6,500 RPMs in 1.8 seconds, reaching a speed of almost 175 mph, and all in second gear. At least, that's what it felt like to him.

People who drove the car appeared quietly awestruck. The salesman's line — that nothing about the 2010 Camaro is the same as the 1970 Camaro except the car's soul — suddenly seemed not-so-far-fetched.

Could Americans have changed that much in 40 years? Are we now really champions not so much of combative, combustive muscle as technological magic and fuel-efficient speed?

Hearing this kind of talk, Mr. Modys, the owner of the 1970 Z-28, simply walked to his car.

Without a word he climbed in, pointed it toward a distant fence and a diminishing point in the American past, and roared away in a drowning thunder that conjured memories of Saturday-night chicken runs on country roads, or Offenhauser engines at Indy.

The crowd of car lovers erupted in cheers and grunts, unrestrained for the first time that morning. "Now THAT'S what I'm talking about — that's a CAR!" shouted one man.

No, Americans haven't changed, not completely. And the 2010 Camaro is here to prove it. So move over, Rover, and let Jimmi take over. Again.