The Car Connection Expert Review
Likes
- A retro smash, outside
- Powerful in all forms
- Agile handling
- Supportive front seats
Dislikes
- Smaller engines sound meh
- Big engines are thirsty
- Best for only two adults
- Trunk is tiny
- Poor outward vision
Buying tip
features & specs
The 2022 Chevy Camaro lights enthusiast fires with feral V-8 power and ferocious rear-drive grip.
What kind of car is the 2022 Chevrolet Camaro? What does it compare to?
The Camaro coupe and convertible ring with the echo of the 1960s, but double down on the performance of the 21st century. Rivals include the Ford Mustang, Dodge Challenger, BMW Z4, and Toyota Supra.
Is the 2022 Chevrolet Camaro a good car?
The Camaro can be amazingly quick and confident on the track, though less livable on the street. We give it a TCC Rating of 5.6 out of 10, with soaring performance scores and low ones in gas mileage and interior comfort. (Read more about how we rate cars.)
What's new for the 2022 Chevrolet Camaro?
The 1LE package is now limited to the V-8 Camaro SS and ZL1.
Chevy sells the Camaro in a range of trims, from LS to LT, SS, and ZL1. All of them share a body with Coke-bottle curves and throwback styling cues, from the texture of the grille to the shape of the taillights. The interior has some of those references, too, but it’s mostly a wash of black and gray, with a touchscreen to liven it up.
Chevy backs up the Camaro’s sinister shape with acceleration and handling that range from quick and nimble to ferociously fast and tightly strung. With the base 275-hp turbo-4, it can still reach 60 mph in as little as 5.4 seconds, backed by the sounds of a hard-working economy car; with the GOAT supercharged V-8, it snaps off electric-car-like 0-60 mph runs of 3.5 seconds, and when fitted with the 1LE track package, it affixes itself to the track (or the road) with the tenacity of a sticker on a rental-apartment window.
The Camaro’s a sin pit of fun, but it’s also really only suited for two people, and they should have shorter torsos if they want to wear hats or helmets. The back seat and trunk are mere sketches of utility. The safety roster lacks automatic emergency braking. In some ways the Camaro truly still is a car of the Sixties, but at least its crash-test scores are decent.
How much does the 2022 Chevrolet Camaro cost?
The $26,195 1LS has cloth upholstery, 18-inch wheels, and a 7.0-inch touchscreen as well as wireless Apple CarPlay/Android Auto. Get the $43,695 Camaro 2SS with the $7,000 1LE package for a track-ready car with Bose 9-speaker audio, and an 8.0-inch touchscreen. The ZL1 costs at least $65,895.
Where is the 2022 Chevrolet Camaro made?
In Lansing, Michigan.
2022 Chevrolet Camaro Styling
It’s a real Hot Wheels car you can drive.
Is the Chevrolet Camaro a good-looking car?
Sleek and retro-tinged, the Camaro has a body made for showing off, and an interior made for staying inside. We give it two points for the exterior, for a 7 here.
It has a high beltline and a low roof to go with its long nose and short haunches. The Camaro has its proportions down pat, even if function takes what little back seat there is to form. It’s truly like driving a Hot Wheels car, from the high-set and wide grille to the wasp-waisted torso, to the squared-off taillights.
The cockpit’s less exciting. It’s dark with black or gray trim, brightened up a bit with a 7.0- or 8.0-inch touchscreen, a flat-bottomed steering wheel, and big round air vents that stud the dash. It’s as discreet inside as it isn’t outside.
2022 Chevrolet Camaro Performance
Breathy V-8 power and extra-strength grip usher the Camaro through the tightest of corners.
The Camaro’s latest generation has been its best, mostly because its barking V-8 exhaust finally has a world-class platform that endows it with sports-car moves to match its hustle. It’s nearly perfect here, at a 9—and that’s based on its more pedestrian and more popular versions.
Is the Chevrolet Camaro AWD?
Cute! But, no. It’s rear-wheel drive.
How fast is the Chevrolet Camaro?
Pretty fast, bro. Even the 275-hp 2.0-liter turbo-4 in the base car twists out 295 lb-ft of torque, for a 0-60 mph time of 5.4 seconds and ready power at just about any reasonable engine speed. It does sound more like an economy sedan than a poster hero, so there’s no shame in selecting the excellent optional 8-speed automatic in this case in place of the virtue-signaling 6-speed manual.
Chevy fits a 335-hp 3.6-liter V-6 into mid-line Camaros, and their 284 lb-ft of torque plays a more muscle-car-like soundtrack on the way to 60 mph in 5.0 seconds, with either the manual or a fancy 10-speed automatic.
The Camaro of our dreams has a V-8, though, and Camaro LT1 and Camaro SS coupes and convertibles swagger along with a 455-hp 6.2-liter V-8 that spins out 455 lb-ft of torque. It rips off 4.0-second 0-60 mph runs, all the while rumbling and roaring with a distinct Sixties sound. ZL1s supercharge the engine to stream out 650 hp and 650 lb-ft of torque, and a fairly strong dose of supercharger whine, which gets ignored as it rockets to 60 mph in 3.5 seconds and through the quarter-mile in 11.4 seconds.
Worry not about handling: the Camaro’s chassis has double-pivot control arms and struts that have Cadillac roots, but rise above even that pedigree here to crank out cornering grip with a robust but precise feel. The car’s hefty electric-assist power steering has fantastic feel, and available magnetic dampers balance agility with ride quality.
Things get more stiff as the tire sizes go up and sidewall size goes down; it’s jiggly and rough-riding at the top of the range. That’s in ZL1 territory with the 1LE package, in which the Camaro emerges a bona fide track star thanks to stiffer suspension tuning, an electronic limited-slip differential, 6-piston front and 4-piston rear Brembo brakes, and a dual-mode exhaust system.
2022 Chevrolet Camaro Comfort & Quality
Drivers get the best seat in the Camaro; the rest pale in comparison.
The Camaro’s excellent driver seat is the only place you should sit in the rear-drive performance icon. Front passengers don’t even get power adjustments; rear passengers don’t even get room. Deducting points for that awfully tiny back seat and for a small trunk gets us to a 3 here.
Though the cloth-upholstered Camaro cabin has a supportive, power-adjustable driver seat, the manual passenger seat joins it in…enjoying?...a slim view of the world outside. From a low seating position, the best way to see what’s outside of the Camaro’s tiny greenhouse is to step outside of it.
Heated and cooled Recaro bucket seats can be fitted to the Camaro, but tall drivers should test out the accommodations; at least two of our drivers have trouble sitting inside the Camaro with a racing helmet on their heads.
We’ve tried to sit in the back seat, and suggest you don’t.
Convertible Camaros have only 7.3 cubic feet of trunk space; coupes are two better, and the trunk has a high liftover and a small opening. But convertibles have a thick-lined power-folding top that stows quickly.
2022 Chevrolet Camaro Safety
The Camaro has no automatic braking and poor outward vision.
How safe is the Chevrolet Camaro?
Crash-test scores are OK, but the Camaro’s poor rearward vision and its lack of automatic emergency braking cost it points here. It’s a 4.
Blind-spot monitors and rear parking sensors cost extra on the Camaro, and they’re only available on the 3LT trims and higher. There’s no automatic emergency braking or adaptive cruise control.
The NHTSA gives the Camaro coupe a five-star overall rating. The IIHS gives it “Good” crash-test scores except in roof strength, which merits an “Acceptable” score.
2022 Chevrolet Camaro Features
The sweet-spot Camaro comes with V-8 power, cooled seats, and Bose audio.
The Camaro lineup has good infotainment and scads of options, but it skips automatic emergency braking. That gets it to a 7 here.
The lineup starts with the $26,195 1LS model, and moves up through 1LT, 2LT, 3LT, LT1, 1SS, 2SS, and ZL1. All models are available as a coupe or convertible.
The 1LS Camaro comes with a 7.0-inch touchscreen with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, 6-speaker audio, a power driver seat, keyless start, and 18-inch wheels.
Which Chevrolet Camaro should I buy?
We’d skip ahead to the $43,695 Camaro 2SS and add the $7,000 1LE package for lots of amenities in a track-ready car. In that configuration the Camaro has 20-inch summer tires, Brembo brakes, satellite radio, Bose 9-speaker audio, heated and cooled front seats, an 8.0-inch touchscreen, a rear camera mirror, and a head-up display.
How much is a fully loaded Chevrolet Camaro?
The $65,895 ZL1’s sticker includes a $1,700 gas-guzzler tax. It has Goodyear Eagle F1 Supercar summer tires, magnetic dampers, Recaro seats, and a data recorder that can record and time track laps. At this stratospheric level, we’d go ahead with the $7,500 ZL1 1LE Extreme Track Performance package, which gets front dive planes, a front splitter, and a carbon-fiber rear wing, as well as adjustable front ride height, camber settings, and rear stabilizer bars.
2022 Chevrolet Camaro Fuel Economy
The turbo-4 leads in fuel economy.
Is the Chevrolet Camaro good on gas?
The turbo-4 in the Camaro earns EPA ratings of 22 mpg city, 30 highway, 25 combined when it’s paired with the automatic transmission. We call that a 4. Coupled to a 6-speed manual it’s pegged at 19/29/22 mpg.
V-6 Camaros check in at 18/29/22 mpg with the automatic or 16/26/20 mpg with the stick. But it’s V-8s that most Camaro buyers will want to drive, and they’re far less efficient. The stock V-8 with the automatic gets EPA ratings of 16/26/20 mpg; with the manual it’s 16/24/19 mpg. Supercharged V-8s pull down the range at 14/20/16 mpg with the manual and 13/21/16 mpg with the automatic.
