Revealed in May 2015, the Gen 6 of the Camaro took the pony wars to a different level altogether thanks to the Alpha platform and retro looks. But the redesign for the 2019 model year leaves much to be desired from a visual standpoint, as you can tell from official images of the newcomer, as well as this walkaround clip of the SS.
Countless motoring publications and Internet forums polled the public on what they prefer between the 2016 and 2019 Camaro, and as you would expect, the pre-facelift wins this match by a considerable margin. It will take some time to get used to the front-end of the V8-powered SS, but lesser models of the breed (such as the V6 and turbocharged four-cylinder) look bad. How bad? Worse-than-rental-car bad.
Here are three examples of what people think of the 2019 model year, from three readers of three different motoring publications: “It’s howlingly, forehead-slappingly, cringe-inducingly awful,” “Camaro SS looks like it has mandibles from a grasshopper's mouth,” “A Transformer crashed halfway through transformation.”
The rear-end design doesn’t win the appreciation of too many people either, with the taillights sticking out like a sore thumb. You could even say that Chevrolet has been gunning for a Corvette-wannabe impression, though the C7 is a cohesive design from one end to the other in comparison to the refreshed Gen 6. Even with the smoked taillights of the SS and lower rear valence, Chevy could’ve done better.
Oddly enough, the 2019 Camaro appears to follow the same design principles that Chevrolet used for the 2019 Spark, Cruze, and Malibu. While the styling works well in those applications, the Camaro is a performance-oriented pony car, not an econobox that people and companies buy for daily driving from point A to point B.
Last, but certainly not least, the Camaro SS looks subdued in natural lighting as compared to the press photos. Even though the 2018 Mustang still polarizes opinion with its catfish-like front fascia, the Ford Motor Company did a better job with its pony car’s mid-cycle refresh.
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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