Chevrolet SS
 

Noticed a unicorn yesterday--Koons in Tyson's Corner has a manual SS, so I swung by this morning for a drive.

This is a really, really good car. Blank out the Chevy badges and you'd be hard pressed to identify its country of origin. It feels Germanic in the way it gets down the road, but not crappy new German--old school German. Honestly, it's the best BMW anyone builds right now, including (especially) BMW.

Steering feel is decent but not great; a little more talkative than the Tesla but not much.

Body control is excellent. I think they all have Magna Ride now, but whatever the tuning, it's well done.

Clutch take up is longish and surprisingly light. Combine that with a shifter that's...not vague, but fairly widely spaced and deliberate, and you have a recipe for shifts that take a moment to execute. Maybe this improves with practice, but I wasn't really banging through the gears. More like waaaah...pause...shift...pause...waaaah.

But IDGAF because it is a manual backing a big V8, which is awesome.

Also, no dead pedal. It would be nice to have, but see above about the Fs I do not give.

The engine? Oh, yes. Oh, it makes glorious sounds. On overrun it braps and crackles, which may get old at some point but made me cackle every time it happened on the drive. Torque is good down low but the engine actually likes to rev, at least a little. Unlike an E90 M3, you don't have to wind it out to have fun. It's got power where you want it.

Otherwise, the rest of the car feels pretty good. Interior materials are nice enough, with only a few cheap missteps. There's lots of room, and the seats aren't crazy well bolstered but they are pretty well suited to their mission.

I'm kind of in love with this car tbh. Everyone reading this should go buy one. http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/2016...2946abf472.jpg

I assume it will still be unsold next weekend (unless you buy it before then). I'll try to get over there. No point in going after work as Tysons traffic makes that pointless.

EDIT- It's discounted (surprise!)- http://www.koonschevybuickgmc.com/ne...8a63f38d18.htm

That is a unicorn. Pretty much every review I've read praises this car as the 2nd coming of an e39 m5. I hope one of you buys it!

It's difficult to imagine spending $50K on a Chevy. Knee-jerk reaction, I know.

I thought that about $30k for a Focus a few years ago. Now $40k for an RS seems reasonable.

And Truecar.com says this one should go for about $45, so there's that.

I don't believe either JST or TD will buy this one. And it would totally awesome if I said that because I just bought it. But I didn't.

I've been thinking...

If I put money down on the Model 3 on Thurs, and then buy one of these to replace the Model S toward the end of the year...

So you're putting a deposit on a Model 3? I can't decide if I want to or not… Mostly since I'm not sure I'd want to get one in the first 6-12 months of build. Talked to a Model X owner a week ago and his X has some build quality issues (including some scratches in the paint on the A-pillars -- he thinks the windshield install went awry…). My Model S was built 11 months after the first deliveries -- and it has a few minor build quality issues. But I guess a refundable $1k would at least hold a spot...

As for the SS, I've seen a couple in the last few weeks. One went by me while I was stopped at a light with the roof open. It sounded great as it went by...

I will be putting a deposit down on the Model 3 as well.

I tried to put a deposit down on the SS when it was first announced and the dealer had no idea what I was talking about. Had they taken it, I might already have one. As it is, I struggle with the Chevy-ness of it all. It theory, it's perfect. But I can't escape those big ass logos.

Not sure about the Model 3, but I'll probably put cash down on the first day, pending the reveal anyway.

The guys at the Chevy dealer were cool enough. No idea what service would be like, but it is impossible that it could be worse than the VW dealer I've used.

I really hope whoever it is that sets the ride height/rake at GM retires soon. Same goes for the person sourcing all that chrome.

I've thought about this WRT that car. It would not be hard to black out the chrome bits.

Was chatting on another board and it reminded some of us it that from the side profile it had a bit of E46 look to it.

I'd certainly buy this before I bought an F3#.

http://www.zhpmafia.com/forums/attac...1&d=1446826140
http://www.zhpmafia.com/forums/attac...1&d=1446826027

Floated the idea with other stakeholders, who were really, really appalled by the name. It is a very dumb thing to name a car.

Would not be so bad if it were just on the outside, but there are "SS"s stitched all over the interior.

Switch the wardrobe to Hugo Boss in all black, and drive it ironically? :p

If you get it in brown, do they change the badges to SD?

I have a couple Helly Hansen jackets -- so have the "HH" logo on them. A woman came up to me once and asked why I had a jacket with such a reference on it. I said, "what? The jacket is from a Norwegian company called Helly Hansen." Her response "Oh, I thought it was a reference to Heil Hitler" :eek:

Ouch.

There are a glut of unicorns in local stock so TD, JST and I can each get one. But we won't.

http://www.koonstysonschevybuickgmc....-VA/2815656403

http://www.koonstysonschevybuickgmc....-VA/2803975553

http://www.heritagechevrolet-buick.c...-MD/2807431563

These popped up first. Makes me think there are plenty more around...

I read somewhere this morning that GM ordered, or commissioned a 1000 unit order to Holden

Hopefully not all automatics

Why are they alllll black. That car needs a serious de-chroming.

To go with your interior choice of black or black or black... I'm not fond of black exteriors, but I pretty much detest black interiors...

Doesn't surprise me.

I'm becoming more impress with cars coming out of GM. The last one I drove was a rental car a few years ago.

Camaro