I recently again drove my brother-in-law's 97 SS Camaro after a few years, and while I would hate to tell him or his father this, it's an utter piece of shit. It now has 110,000 on it. I feel badly they still have a couple years left to pay off the note. They keep putting money into its ridiculously expensive sub-par reliability.
While the LT1 is enjoyable, the skip-shifting six-speed is wholly unnecessary and a pain, yeah, you can avoid skip shift, but... and I got
5th instead of 3rd twice (why skip shift? And why two overdrives? Oh, CAFE, can't spare this one from it), and the fit and finish is CRAP. Neither window works, one doorlock sort of works, the interior is falling apart, the doors are sagging, the seats are wearing out and are hard on your assbone, the cowl shake and flex is RIDICULOUS (t-tops I guess), and all the buttons, knobs, handles, vents etc. have just exhibited the same cheapness and premature wear I remember of a 1980 Crappalier.The obscenely wide z-rated tires make it grip well, but they make the car handle like shit, to me... it jerkily follows every ripple, and its quick steering ratio makes correcting for this marvellous trait a twitchy, at times unnerving experience instead of a fun ride in a fast car. Pour it into a turn, and oh yeah you'll get some fun lateral G's, but I get the sense without some understanding of how to do so, you could snap-spin it and die with a tree up your ass easily. Those tires just start "scrubbing", and you know something violent would follow. I suppose some of this is just endemic to big gummy tires, but my God, is new, perfect asphalt supposed to appear in front of the car or something?
I haven't driven a newer Cobra, but I did tell him he should have bought that instead, knowing he'd just think because it was me. Even with z-rated gum tires, I can't imagine it being THAT bad.