Chevrolet Camaro vs Chevrolet Impala

It’s easy to forget how important a car like the Chevrolet Camaro is to American car culture. When it was first introduced, it served as General Motors’ mighty counterpunch to the iconic Ford Mustang. Ever since, Pony Car battle lines have been drawn along those manufacturer allegiances.

When GM brought back the Camaro for the 2010 model year, after an 8-year hiatus, rumor has it Chevy fans were literally tearing up on the show floor. That seems like a wild notion, but when you consider that a car like the Camaro is the aspirational-yet-affordable car for die-hard Chevy fans, you quickly realize any new release of this Pony Car will be heavily scrutinized by fans of the “Bowtie Brand.”

It’s that audience you must consider with the completely redesigned 2016 Chevrolet Camaro. It might look like a clever update of the 2015 model, but it's an entirely new car, riding on a platform shared with the Cadillac CTS and ATS. That means there's a new level of refinement at play, but it’s not all rosy for the Camaro, as the previous model had some serious setbacks that negatively impacted its usability in daily driving. So did Chevy take advantage of all the positive attributes offered by sharing a platform with the CTS/ATS? Or did it fall into the same pitfalls?