Smart 1 vs Chevrolet Camaro

What's the difference?

It’s easy to get lost in marketing hype, but — based on first impressions — the Smart #1 does what it says on the tin. This is a Chinese-built SUV that feels more premium than most, and one which is priced to tempt you from one of the German big three. The warranty isn’t good enough, though, and the multimedia screen can be infuriating, but it drives very nicely, especially on suburban roads.

Note: CarsGuide attended this event as a guest of the manufacturer, with travel, accommodation and meals provided.

The Camaro 2SS is a real-life Hot Wheels car. This beast looks amazing, sounds incredible and is not overpowered, making it usable as a daily driver.

Now about that score. The Camaro 2SS lost big marks for not having AEB, lost more marks for the short warranty and no capped-price servicing and also some for its price, because compared to the Mustang it’s expensive. It’s also impractical (space and storage could be better) and uncomfortable to drive at times, but this is a muscle car, and a great one at that. It's not for everybody, but  truly perfect for some.

There is an impossibility pretty model in Smart’s new line-up, but the #1 ain’t it. While the #3 — which has also just launched — is a sleek-looking, coupe-style SUV, the #1 is a top-heavy small SUV that doesn’t shine from every angle.

Front-on, or from a front three-quarter angle, the #1 definitely works, with the brand setting out to remove unnecessary fussiness from the design, leaving smooth and rounded bodywork in its place.

There are no body creases or weird angles here, instead it’s a smooth, fluid-like design that flows from the front LED lights bar to the smooth shoulder lines to the matching light treatment at the rear. 

But it’s at the rear where, for mine, the design begins to fall over. From that angle, the #1 looks skinny and top-heavy, especially when wearing the red hat of the Brabus model.

Still, eye of the beholder and all that.

Inside, though, the #1 kicks all sorts of goals, presenting as a properly premium-feeling EV space that’s swimming with technology and lovely cabin materials.

I particularly love the letterbox-style screen that replaces the traditional dashboard. It’s not distracting or overbearing like some twin-screen set-ups, but clearly shows you the key driving stuff you need when you’re on the road.

Side note, though, the massive central screen is super clear and lightning fast, but as usual you need to spend some (a lot) of time with it to figure out where all the functions are hiding, with most of the car’s key controls hidden within its labyrinth.

And side note two, the background graphics look like they were designed by a cordial-addled child, it is busy, cartoonish and out of keeping with the calm, grown-up nature of the #1’s cabin.

As was the case with Ford’s Mustang, something seemed to go bizarrely weird in the styling of the Camaro in the early 2000s, but by 2005 the arrival of the fifth generation saw a design that re-imagined the original (and I reckon the best) 1967 Camaro. Now this sixth-generation car is a sharper resolution of that, yet not without causing a bit of controversy.

Along with styling changes, such as redesigned LED headlights and taillights, the front fascia was also given a tweak, which involved repositioning the Chevy ‘bow-tie’ badge from the upper grille to the black-painted cross bar that separates the top and bottom sections. The reaction from fans was enough for Chevrolet to quickly redesign the front and move the badge back.

Our test car was the version with the ‘unpopular’ face, but I reckon it gets away with the look, thanks to the body colour being black, which means your eye isn’t drawn to that cross bar.

Here’s some pub ammo for you – Chevy calls the ‘bow tie’ on this Camaro a ‘Flow Tie’ because its hollow construction means air can pass through it to the radiator.

Big on the outside but small inside, the Camaro’s dimensions show it to be 4784mm long, 1897mm wide (not including mirrors) and 1349mm tall.

Ford’s Mustang is elegant, but Chevy’s Camaro is more macho. Big haunches, long bonnet, flared guards, nostrils. This is one mean-looking monster. Those high sides and ‘chopped’ roof design may also make you assume the cabin is more cockpit than lounge room.

That assumption would be right and in the practicality section further down I’ll tell you just how cozy the interior is, but for now we're just talking about looks.

I’m not sure what David Hasselhoff’s apartment looks like, but at a guess I reckon it would have a hell of a lot in common with the interior design of the Camaro 2SS’s cabin.

Soft, black leather seats with SS badging, giant metal air vents, door handles that look like chrome exhaust tips and a display screen that is oddly tilted towards the floor.

There’s also an ambient LED lighting system that lets you choose from 1980s-neon colour palettes, the likes of which we haven’t seen since Ken Done’s outstanding depiction of a Koala family sitting down to a barbecue lunch.

I’m not knocking it, I love it, and even though the guys in the office thought it would be hilarious to set the lighting to hot pink, I kept it that way because it looks awesome.

The Smart #1 measures just under 4.3m long, just over 1.8m in width and around 1.6m in height, and it rides on a 2.75m wheelbase. And the perk of the Smart’s EV powertrain, the brand says, is Mercedes-Benz E-Class levels of space in the back seat, despite the #1’s diminutive footprint.

It’s a big claim, and while I didn’t break out the tape measure I can say the backseat feels plenty generous, and because the rear pew slides forwards or backwards by 15cm, you can choose whether you want more legroom or more luggage space.

Speaking of which, pop the auto-opening boot (by hitting the ‘a’ in the ‘Smart’ lettering, which I couldn’t figure out without help) and you’ll find 323 litres of space with the back seat as far back as it goes, growing to 411 litres with it pushed all the way forward. There’s also a 15-litre frunk.

Smart says the #1 weighs 1800kg, adding it will tow 1600kg — but I’m sure you can imagine the impact a heavy load will have on your driving range.

The Camaro 2SS’s cabin is cozy for me at 191cm tall, but even with a similarly proportioned photographer riding shotgun it wasn’t too cramped. Believe it or not, we were able to carry all his equipment and lights, plus batteries for our night shoot (have you seen the video above – it’s very good). I’ll get to the boot size in a moment.

The Camaro 2SS is a four-seater, but those rear seats are only going to suit small children. I was able to fit my four year old’s car seat into place with a bit of gentle persuasion, and while he could sit behind my wife, there was zero space behind me when I was driving. As for visibility, we’ll get to that in the driving section below, but I can tell you he couldn’t see much from his tiny porthole.

Cargo capacity of the boot is small, as you’d expect, at 257 litres, but the space is deep and long. The problem is not the volume, however, it’s the size of the opening, which means you’ll have to cleverly angle larger items to get them in, like pushing a couch through your front door. You know, houses are big, but their openings aren’t. I know, profound.

Cabin storage is also limited, the door pockets were so thin my wallet couldn’t even slide into it (no, it’s not the wads of cash), but there was just enough room in the centre console storage bin for it. There are two cupholders, which are more like elbow holders, (because this part wasn’t swapped over in the conversion and that’s where your arm lands while driving) and a glove box. Rear-seat passengers have a large tray to fight over in the back.

The 2SS doesn’t have a wireless-charging pad like the ZL1, but it does have one USB port and a 12V outlet.

You know how people talk about cars not always being a rational purchase? This is the type of vehicle they’re talking about. The Camaro 2SS lists at $86,990 and the total tested price of our car was $89,190, because it was fitted with the optional 10-speed auto for $2200.

In comparison, the V8 Ford Mustang GT with the 10-speed auto is about $66K. Why the big price difference? Well, unlike the Mustang, which is built as a right-hand-drive car in the factory for places such as Australia and the UK, the Camaro is only built as a left-hand drive. HSV puts about 100 hours into converting the Camaro from left to right-hand drive. That’s a big job and involves gutting the interior, taking out the engine, swapping the steering rack and putting it all back together again.

If you still think $89K is a lot to spend on a Camaro, then think again because the top-of-the-range hardcore race-car-for-the-road ZL1 Camaro lists for about $160K.

Those are only the two grades of Camaro in Australia – the ZL1 and 2SS. The 2SS is a higher-specified version of the 1SS sold in the US.

Standard features in the 2SS include an eight-inch screen, which uses Chevrolet’s Infotainment 3 system, a nine-speaker Bose stereo, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, head-up display, rear-view camera and rear camera mirror, dual-zone climate control, leather seats (heated and ventilated, plus power adjustable in the front), remote start, proximity key and 20-inch alloys.

That’s a decent amount of kit and I’m particularly impressed by the head-up display, which you don’t get in the Mustang, and also with the rear-vision-mirror camera, which turns the entire mirror into an image of what’s behind the car.

There are two drivetrains on offer here - one shared across the Pro+ and Premium, and another delivering the prodigious power of the #1 Brabus.

The first shared option is a single rear motor that delivers 200kW and 343Nm, which is enough to knock off the sprint to 100km/h in 6.7 seconds. Top speed for all models is listed as 180km/h.

The Brabus, though, adds a motor at the front axle, giving it AWD, which ups the outputs to a punchy 315kW and 543Nm, dropping the sprint to 100km/h to a very fast-feeling 3.9 seconds.

It’s a single-speed EV transmission in each, which means smooth, constant power delivery with no traditional ‘steps’, and all get 'Eco', 'Normal' and 'Sport' drive modes, though the only thing they impact is the accelerator response.

You can add weight to the steering, but that’s a separate item accessed elsewhere in the screen’s sub-menus.

Sure, the 2SS doesn’t produce the mammoth 477kW of the ZL1, but I’m not complaining about the 339kW and 617Nm it does make from its 6.2-litre V8. Besides, 455 horsepower from the 2SS’s naturally aspirated LT1 small block is plenty of fun and the sound on start-up through the bi-modal exhaust is apocalyptic - and that’s good.

Our car was fitted with the optional 10-speed auto ($2200), with paddle shifters. The automatic transmission was developed as a joint venture between General Motors and Ford and a version of this 10-speed is also found in the Mustang.

This traditional torque-converter automatic isn’t the quickest shifting thing, but it suits the big, powerful and slightly lethargic personality of the Camaro 2SS.

All Smart #1 models share the same 66kWh battery, but how far you can travel between charges comes down to the trim you choose, with the WLTP driving range either 400km, 420km or 440km. The Brabus, of course, covers the least ground between charges, owing to its dual-motor set-up and amped up power outputs. 

When it comes time to plug in, all models are equipped with 150kW DC fast-charging capability, and when plugged into said charger, you can expect to go from zero to 80 per cent charged in less than 30 minutes. 

There’s also 22kW AC charging on board in the Premium and Brabus models, which means you can use three-phase power, but plugged into a regular 7.4kWh home wallbox should see you go from zero to 80 per cent charged in 7.5 hours, which means overnight charging should work a treat.

Okay, brace yourself. During my fuel test I traveled 358.5km and used 60.44L of premium unleaded, which comes out to be 16.9L/100km. That sounds awfully high, but actually it's not as bad as it looks, considering the Camaro 2SS has a 6.2-litre V8 and I wasn't driving it in a way that would conserve fuel, if you get my drift. Half of those kilometres were on motorways at 110km/h, the other half would have been in bumper-to-bumper city traffic, which would have driven up the fuel usage, too. 

The official fuel consumption after a combination of open and urban roads is 13L/100km.

The #1 and its sister car, the #3, might share powertrains and batteries, but they are designed to drive very differently. The #3 is the sporty one (always code for a firmer ride), while the #1 is supposed to be softer, more comfortable and more city-friendly.

That’s the theory, at least. In practice, I have no idea. My time behind the wheel of the #1 was limited to its most fire-breathing model — the Brabus, which also scores its own suspension components — and soft is not a word that comes to mind once you’re strapped in behind its bright red seatbelt.

It begins with those bonkers power outputs, 315kW and 543Nm, which deliver genuine push-you-back-in-your-seat acceleration every time you stand on the go pedal.

Better still (well, I think so, at least), is that activating its sportiest 'Brabus' mode also unlocks a deep Abarth-style burbling soundtrack that rises and falls with your inputs.

But like most performance EVs, you can also dial the drive experience right back. In its softer drive modes the #1 Brabus feels calm and comfortable and not overly reactive, which makes sense, given the only thing the Brabus mode changes is accelerator sensitivity.

The result, though, is a car that you can tootle around in silently when you want to but hides a nuclear weapon under your right foot when you want to unleash that part of its personality. 

Downsides? It’s got plenty of point-and-shoot power, but in the few corners we managed to find in it, it didn’t quite live up to the all-out-performance badge. There’s a bit too much movement in the body — a symptom of its near-2.0-tonne weight — and it doesn’t feel entirely engaging.

A couple of important caveats, though. We didn’t get long behind the wheel of the #1, and the dull-as-dishwater prescribed drive program revealed little about its true performance potential. So, we’ll have to wait until the model is properly through the CarsGuide garage to give you a deeper dive on this one.

Exactly how an American muscle car should be – loud, a bit uncomfortable, not all that easy, but a hell of a lot of fun. Those first three attributes may sound like negatives, but take it from somebody who owns and loves hot rods - it’s part of the appeal. If an SUV is not easy to drive or comfortable there's a problem, but in a muscle car it can enhance the engagement and connection factors.

That said, there will be many who think the ride is too firm, the steering heavy and that it feels like you’re staring out a letterbox slot through the windscreen. It’s all true, and there are other performance cars out there which make as much horsepower, handle better and are so easy to drive they can almost (and some do) pilot themselves, but they all lack the feeling of connection the Camaro offers.

Wide and low-profile Goodyear Eagles (245/40 ZR20 at the front and 275/35 ZR20 at the rear) provide good grip, but also feel every blemish in the road, while four-piston Brembo brakes all round pull the Camaro 2SS up well.

Acceleration from 0-100km/h isn’t disclosed by HSV or Chevrolet, but the official line is that it’ll nail it in under five seconds. Ford reckons its Mustang GT can do the same in 4.3 seconds.

If you were wondering if you could live with the Camaro daily, the answer is yes but, much like wearing leather pants, you’ll have to suffer a bit to look this rock and roll. I put 650km on the clock of our 2SS during my week with it, using it daily in peak-hour traffic into the city, in supermarket car parks, and for daycare drop offs, with country road and motorway drives on the weekend.

The seats can get uncomfortable over long distances and those low-profile ‘run-flat’ tyres and firm dampers don’t make life any comfier. You’ll also find that wherever you go people will want to race you. But don’t get sucked in; you’re slower than you look - another muscle-car trait.

Sure, it’s not the quickest performance car I’ve steered and on winding roads its handling capability is not up there with many sports cars, but that V8 is responsive and angry in Sport mode and smooth in its delivery of grunt. The exhaust note is sensational and the steering, while heavy, offers great feel and feedback. The sound isn’t electronically enhanced but it uses bi-modal valves, which open and close at different engine and exhaust loads to produce its addictive bark.

The Chevrolet Camaro 2SS doesn’t have an ANCAP rating, but it’s certain that it wouldn’t achieve the maximum five stars because it doesn’t have AEB. There is forward-collision alert which warns you of an impending impact, there’s also blind-spot warning, rear cross traffic alert and eight airbags.

For child seats (and I did put my own four-year-old in the back) there are two top-tether points and two ISOFIX mounts in the second row.

There's no spare wheel here, so you’ll have to hope you’re within 80km of home or a repair shop, because that’s how far the Goodyear ‘run-flat’ tyres will get you.

The low (ish) score is for the lack of AEB. If the Mustang can be fitted with autonomous emergency braking, then the Camaro should be, too.

Warranty is a definite soft spot, with LSH Auto offering five years or 150,000km, whichever comes first. For reference, other Chinese newcomers include Chery (seven years) BYD (six years) and GWM (seven years), while MG has just shifted to a 10-year warranty.

Still, service intervals are 12 months/20,000km, and you should be able to take your Smart to any LSH Auto Mercedes dealership (in Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney) or either of the Smart dealerships in Sydney or Brisbane.

Service cost for the first four years averages $611 per workshop visit for the Pro+ and Premium (worth noting the fourth service is a big one) and $780 for the Brabus. Not particularly small numbers.

The Camaro 2SS is covered by HSV’s three-year/100,000km warranty. Servicing is recommended at nine-month/12,000km intervals, with a complimentary inspection at the end of the first month. There is no capped-price-servicing program.