2016 Chevrolet SS review: Nondescript in the best possible way

Base Price: $47,570
As Tested Price: $48,570
Drivetrain: 6.2-liter V8, RWD six-speed manual
Output: 415 hp @ 5,900 rpm, 415 lb-ft @ 4,600 rpm
Curb Weight: 3,975 lb
Fuel Economy: 14/22/17 mpg(EPA City/Hwy/Combined)
Options: gas guzzler tax ($1,000)
Pros: A sleeper that police won’t notice
Cons: With no marketing and no context, it's destined to remain invisible


MCF Member's, do you like it ? Would you buy one ? Please post/share your thoughts, opinions(s) `OK

June 28, 2016








Photo by Chevrolet













Chevy's spectacular SS is a sleeper...until you mash the gas


If you know what the Chevrolet SS is, you probably have a healthy respect for it. If you haven’t even heard of it…I can’t say I blame you.
In more ways than one, this has to be the most stealthy sport sedan on the market. That’s great for those who are in the know, but maybe less-than-great for those trying to sell it (or enthusiasts who would like to see this model continue into the future). I’ll pin part of that on marketing, or lack thereof, and the rest on looks.
Styling. Hmm. Again, if you know what you’re looking at, there’s a good chance you’ll give an appreciative nod when one drives by. If you don’t, absolutely nothing about this car will make you scamper over to Chevrolet Dot Com to figure out what mystery car you just saw. It doesn’t look like a 2015 Malibu when you line the two cars up side-by-side, sure, but it looks an awful lot like one when you do a mental comparison. Go on, try it. You’ll see what I mean.
Naturally, those who get it -- and I managed to talk to a couple of friendly SS owners of the course of my weekend in the car -- don't want it any other way. They like that the SS is a sneaky powerhouse that doesn’t attract a whole lot of attention until you step on the gas and make the engine bellow and rip.

2016 Chevrolet SS sedan Photo by Chevrolet






All told, it’s what I’d call a handsome car, and one free of most of the boy-racer pretension that infests this segment. Those vents on the hood actually lead to the engine compartment and are apparently functional, unlike so many just-for-show bits on other performance cars. In not being forced to design a tarted-up faux track monster, designers steered well clear of the winglets, scoops and diffusers that may or may not have an impact on handling while driving at 200 mph on the Nurburgring, which I’m sure practically all German sports car buyers do on a weekly basis.
The biggest concession to “style” on the SS is the dorky plastic engine cover hiding the 6.2-liter V8 from sight. Seems easy enough to remove.
Here then, form and function are well-matched. The SS and its underpinnings are confidence-inspiring and really well balanced, and you don’t need to wring the car out at triple-digit speeds for it all to come together -- one of my big qualms about BMW M-cars. You can get a lot of enjoyment just driving it like a responsible, grown-up regular car (one with rear seats big enough for adults!) and then at a moment’s notice grab second gear and swing around a corner without feeling like you’re about to get bit, or bite the curb.

2016 Chevrolet SS sedan Photo by Chevrolet






And then you’re back in nothing-to-see-here-officer mode, sneakily burbling along with traffic. It’s great!
The biggest hurdle this car faces isn’t necessarily its styling, or the lack of an all-out advertising blitz. It certainly isn’t its performance or old-fashioned fun. Even the price is, for what you get and how enjoyable it is to be behind the wheel, reasonable. It’s that the SS is a sleeper hot rod for which there exists no non-hot rod version, at least in the US market.
In Australia, where this is known as the Holden Commodore, you can spec this out as a V6 or a V8-equipped sedan, wagon or ute (think El Camino). The naturally aspirated 6.2-liter LS3 V8 isn’t quite the top-of-the-line, because if you really hate rear tires you can get a 6.2-liter supercharged LSA. But it’s definitely positioned as a performance car. People know the Commodore name; they’ve grown up with the cars. Maybe they’d be willing to splash out on a pricey hi-po one.
Not so the ambiguously named SS, which we only get in 415-hp V8 sedan form. It parachutes in from Down Under without context, or a dedicated fanbase, and it doesn’t quite have the looks to pull in droves of newly minted followers. You could say that the deck has been stacked against this very worthy car from the start. Now, if it were dubbed the Impala or Chevelle…
-- Graham Kozak, associate editor

2016 Chevrolet SS sedan Photo by Chevrolet



OPTIONS: gas guzzler tax ($1,000)

 

▶ 14:19

2016 Chevrolet SS Sedan: The New Benchmark Sport Sedan - Ignition Ep. 152 - YouTube

May 23, 2016 - Uploaded by Motor Trend Channel
Prepare yourself for some great engine sounds, then sit back and enjoy this episode of Ignition, presented by ...

May 24, 2016 - Seeing this video about why the 2016 Chevrolet SS sedan with its LS3 V8 and standard manual transmission is the new benchmark for the ...

Apr 30, 2016 - Originally Posted by holler View Post and yea, this engine is not a SOHC, lol. I thought the LS3 had a single cam- 16 valves... Am I missing ...

Prepare yourself for some great engine sounds, then sit back and enjoy this episode of Ignition, presented by Tire Rack. Enthusiasts still put the E39-chassis.

... put the E39-chassis BMW M5 on a pedestal. It's arguably the best sports sedan ever made, with the perfect mix of sport and luxury, refinement and involvement.

 

Nice post BBmike !!

Not so much a fan of the new SS (too big)

 

The SS is like the Chevy Cruze's big bad daddy from Down Under! ("Six-foot-four, and fulla muscle")

Of course, Chevy's been rocking the SS body as in NASCAR for a few years now, so there's some extra exposure for it in that regard. I wish though that Chevy would've given this car a real name. "Chevrolet Commodore SS" would've been all right.

And if I'm not mistaken, a new SS sedan could be had for the same price as a new loaded Camaro SS. Food for thought...

 

* Thanks `Tadd, David, member's for you post/thoughts & contributions to your MCF

Below is the S.S. I'd like to have 4-$ure What do you think of it ? Your thoughts ?
How Australia's Coolest Little Truckets Are Showing Up In America


Andrew P Collins
4/04/14 1:30pmFiled to: CONVERSIONS

84.7K

20512




The hoonalicious Australian car-trucks known as "utes" Down Under are slowly starting to proliferate in the US, thanks to a Colorado outfit dramatically underselling them as "modern-day El Caminos." This is how they're making dreams come true.


How The Hell Did Someone Register A Holden Ute In New York?

We have a bit of an El Camino fetish here. Anytime someone mentions the prospect of it coming back…Read more jalopnik.​com


As many of you know, utes are basically the mullet of motor vehicles and a mainstay of Australian transportation— sedan in the front, pickup truck in the back.
The bodystyle met its demise in America when the El Camino was put down in 1987, but it popularity continued to soar Down Under, making would-be utility car drivers in the States some fierce kinda jealous.

That's where Randy Reese comes in. He's has been operating "Left Hand Utes" in Denver for the last two years, shipping in Holden ute bodies from Australia as "parts only" vehicles and combining them with just enough American car parts to get them legally titled and registered here in the homeland.


On the phone, Reese was adamant to reiterate that his conversions are not "chop and weld" jobs. He makes sure all of the ute's original safety equipment, including air bags, ABS, traction control, and the rest are fully functional.
"90% of the original ute wiring harness gets used," he says.
The vehicles he creates get their own VIN, like a kit car, allowing them to be legally titled.
To create utes from 2011 and later, Reese uses a Malibu cop car platform. For models older than that a Pontiac G8 provides the base. He's also used a Pontiac GTO for a high-horsepower application.
"I don't make any guarantees until [the ute parts] get into the United States, because you never know what's gonna happen on the boat," explained Reese.



I guess automotive documentation can get a little messy in Australia; many states down there use electronic titles and registrations. Reese cites a lack of physical paperwork as hassle on the American side of the importation equation, and a big contributor to car theft issues.
"And I once tried to ship a body and an engine in the same container, US Customs didn't like that too much." But at this point, he's got his transportation process pretty well dialed in.
He's built eleven utes so far, and it usually takes him about two and half months to bring one from a pile of pieces fresh off the boat to a running, road-legal product. A month and a half of that is doing paperwork.
Apparently the next hardest part of the process is the wiring. Reese has trouble getting electrical diagrams for the utes, and some have pretty advanced accessories. But the cars he builds are built to run, and run hard. Reese favors the hilariously-named high performance variant called the "Maloo."


"There was a 2012 Maloo which had something called the Enhanced Driver Interface (EDI) made by MoTec. It monitors the track, tells you if you're oversteering or understeering, over braking or under braking. Basically the same setup as the GT-R... that took a LOT of work to set up."
"On another one, I had to open my big mouth and tell a customer I could hook up the heated seats. That actually wasn't easy either."
Reese brought one of his Maloos to SEMA last year at the behest of a wheel company, who used it to get some extra attention on their products.


Right now he's wrapping up a 2010 Maloo in "Ivy Green," which he was excited to report was being blessed with a 6.2 engine and manual transmission. After that's done four more builds are in the hopper— two Maloos, and two "Thunders," which he'll put on a Chevy Malibu platform.
While Left Hand Utes has focused on recreating GM's Holden cars, Reese has a 2005 Ford XR6 on its way across the ocean that he's excited about for one feature in particular: a push-button electronically locking rear differential. "I think that's gonna stir up some things," he told me. Indeed, that sounds like a recipe for a lot of tire slaying.


But Reese isn't looking forward to sourcing parts for the XR6, he says they share the most commonalities with "British Jaguars" and the closest thing he knows of in the states is the Lincoln LS.
Guess we'll have to check in with him in a couple weeks to see how it turns out.
Reese's business model is something of a hybrid between building on speculation and customer specifications. He basically finds utes on eBay in Australia, ships over ones he likes, and starts drumming up interest as they arrive in parts. He says he's never had a problem getting a buyer before a car's completion, and makes minor adjustments if so requested. But he's not running a full-service customization shop. "The color we get is the color you get. It's too complicated to get a factory-quality paint job."
So how does one get into the ute-converting business in the first place?
Surprisingly there wasn't much to that story. As Reese explained it, he was working in engineering and built the first supercharger kit for the Hummer H3 in 2007. "I went through a bad divorce, and the only thing I kept was that damn supercharger kit."
Fortunately for Mr. Reese, somebody in Australia desperately wanted to boost a fleet of H3s, and offered to fly him Down Under where he'd be paid and put up for free.
When he told his friends back in the states about the glory that is the Australian ute, somebody convinced him they could be sold stateside.
Reese's reply?
"Well, let's figure it out."


Reese still pulls in a strong portion of his livelihood building engines for cars more more commonly seen in America and doing the occasional repair job for Denver car dealers, but so far he's never finished a ute without having it bought and paid for by a customer.
As for his future supply as the Australian auto industry shuts down, he's not too concerned. "Ford going down this year or next year, but Holden is gonna keep making 'em through 2017. Between unions and government subsidies, Aussie auto production getting milked dry. But the bottom line is there will be plenty of utes, I'm not gonna have trouble getting parts any time soon."
Reese seems pretty happy with his present level of volume; building precisely a handful of cars every year. But if you're still crying about being denied the El Camino-style car-trucks of Australia, now you've got the chance to cough up about thirty grand and get yourself one: his website is simply "lefthandutes.com" if you want to get in touch with him and open a dialogue about your own build.
You could always take a crack at building your own, but if I could afford it I think I'd be all over letting someone else jump through the hoops at the US Customs office.
Images: Left Hand Utes, FotoSleuth/Flickr, Tom Reynolds/Flickr,John Morgan/Flickr