Excluding the Corvette, Chevrolet hasn’t built a rear-wheel drive passenger car for more than a decade. Why? Because every fool knows that these days trucks are cool and the only path to glory. And we are still all fools, aren’t we? The SSR? Please. It doesn’t even register. What have you done with our Camaro?
Maybe this will help. A little more than three years ago, Chevrolet’s Special Vehicles dudes rolled out several performance-oriented SS-badged concept vehicles for the scrutiny of a select group of Huns in the enthusiast press. Surprise, they were all trucks. |
The icon was a thoroughly presentable short-cab, short-bed mule of indefinite origin. Two years before the LS2 was released, this SS Silverado sported a hand-built 395hp 6.0L engine and a six-speed manual transmission. It had several minor failings as all mules do, and chief among them was the location of the shift linkage. It sucked royal. It was mounted too far to the rear, so the driver wasn’t pulling the stick so much as he was pushing it. The suspension was a might bumptious, too, but the thing did get down the road with alacrity and, car or no car, was definitely a step in the right direction. |
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