Sad. Some choice quotes in here, some of which Bob may furrow his brow at.
I'll start with this comment solidifying why the SS is in another class from its apparent Charger competition:
Back to the article:Drive a Charger for a week and, once you get past all the power, you'll be disappointed by the rest of the car.
Physical similarities aside, the reason you can’t mention one without the other is the driving experience. So good! As I once wrote about the SS: If you can find a better driving sedan, buy it. But you can’t. Some do come close. The BMW M3 and Cadillac ATS-V jump to mind. They’re both rear-wheel drive and can be had with a manual transmission, but they’re also both turbocharged, and there is no replacement for displacement. Both in terms of the feeling you get from pounding on the big, 6.2-liter cam-in-block V-8 and in the fantastic sounds this particular LS3 makes. Oh, the sounds, the sweet, sweet sounds! Half the time you’ll find yourself enchanted by the growls, snarls, and rumbles grunting their way out from under the hood. The other half will find you intoxicated by the constant, back-burbling mini explosions coming from the quad pipes. At some point, Chevrolet decided to move away from two large-diameter exhaust pipes to four smaller ones. Not sure it looks better, but it sure sounds a hell of a lot better.
Keep in mind he drove the 6-speed manual and that does probably add to the driving pleasure and specialness of the car, so remember that in his comparisons with cars like the Alfa.I’d choose the SS over ATS-V and M3 any day. The new Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio, well, that’s very close to being better than the SS. I have no doubt that the 505-hp Italian is more capable than the SS—I won’t even bother with all the numbers, just trust me here—but capability is not the same thing as driving pleasure. This concept trips people up. Just because something can catapult itself to 60 mph quicker than something else doesn’t mean it is the better car. It just means it’s quicker. Having spent plenty of time with both machines, there’s a sweetness to the SS on a back road that is not quite there with the Alfa. Think of it as a cherry on top. That’s the difference. The Giulia Q is fantastic, whereas the Chevy is fantastic plus more. What about sport sedans in the 5 Series class? Again, the SS wins. Even as performance-biased as these beasts are—and we’re talking CTS-V, RS7, E63, M5—not one of them is as satisfying to drive or as much fun as the Chevy SS. Yup, even with all that extra power. I should note that the BMW M5 can be had in the U.S. with a six-speed manual, but I’d still take the SS.
Zero to 60 mph happens in 4.7 seconds, quicker than the 2015 model we tested, which needed 4.8 seconds. The 2017 SS runs the quarter mile in 13.2 seconds at 108.9 mph. The 2015 model? 13.2 seconds at 109.2 mph. The 2017 version stops from 60 mph in 108 feet, compared to 110 feet for the 2015 car. The biggest difference between the two is on our figure-eight track. The 2015 Chevy SS took 25.0 seconds, which is quite a respectable time. But the new one gets it done in 24.7 seconds, the same as a 707-horsepower Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat or a carbon-fiber-tubbed Alfa Romeo 4C. The aforementioned Giulia Quadrifoglio, just to give you some further perspective, runs the figure eight in 24.2 seconds. Max grip on the 2017 SS is 0.94 g, which is about the same as the 2015 model, at 0.95 g. That sort of discrepancy, as senior features editor Jason Cammisa is so fond of saying, is within the noise. I should also mention that the as-tested price of the Chevy is $49,520, and Chevy’s trying to blow them off dealer lots at the moment with massive 20 percent discounts. That’s less than $40,000. The Alfa? The one we loved cost $85,745. The big dogs, CTS-V, RS7, E63, and M5? They cost more than the Alfa, if not all costing six figures. Talk about bang for your buck!
As such, I stand by my earlier point: pack up the factory and move it. The world deserves cars like the Chevrolet SS.