With its size and power, the car hints of the days when locals such as Frank Sinatra and Bob Hope were kings here. Palm Springs was a Mecca for sprawling ranch-style homes with sparkling aqua swimming pools, and living large.
But the era of excess eventually ended. Out went the three-pack-a-day, three-martini-lunch way of life and cars that gulped gas like golfers chugging drinks after 18 holes.
In a revival of sorts, along comes the Chevrolet SS. It's aimed at those who appreciated the large, rear-wheel-drive performance cars of those years, for good and for bad.
"SS rounds out our performance portfolio," says Russell Clark, the marketing director for performance cars. "Some people say, 'Hey I need a back seat. I need a trunk.'"
The SS is designed to seat five comfortably, with a big trunk. The 6.2-liter V-8 produces 415 horsepower, good for zero to 60 miles per hour in a lickety-split 5 seconds, according to Chevrolet. It will hold its own against Detroit's other rip-snorting sedans -- Dodge Charger SRT8 and Ford Taurus SHO.
That's the good. The bad comes when drivers note the car's gas mileage. Rated at 14 miles a gallon in the city, 21 mpg on the highway and 17 mpg overall, the big SS consumes so much fuel it is assessed $1,300 under the federal gas guzzler tax.
As a result, General Motors officials aren't counting on selling a lot. And not at a starting price of $44,700, including $995 in delivery charges. By comparison, that's about $17,000 more than the base full-size Chevy Impala, one of the most acclaimed cars of the year.
SS "is a relatively ! low-volume product," says David Leone, a GM executive chief engineer. Because of the limited production and the fact that is imported from GM's Holden unit in Australia, the interior comes only in black, with leather seats and fuzzy "microsuede" inserts on the dash and doors. There SS logo adorns the dashboard and front headrests. And there are only two options: a $900 sunroof and $500 for a full-size spare tire.
Given prospects for relatively small sales, SS wouldn't have made business sense for a lot of automakers. It worked for GM because Holden, already produces a big, rear-wheel-drive sedans for the U.S., the Caprice being sold to police departments. The SS shares the same basic platform as the Caprice, but is about three inches shorter -- no need for space for that barricade between the front and back seats -- and has a larger, more potent V-8 producing 60 more horsepower.
It doesn't help Chevy that unfavorable exchange rates have made it more expensive to make cars at Holden. As a result, GM announced earlier this month that it will stop making cars in Australia by 2017. GM spokeswoman Afaf Farah says the plans won't affect the current generation of vehicles, including SS, and there's been no talk yet of what happens after production shutdown there.
Though it may sound like a bolt from the past -- the last SS was built in 1996 -- the new SS is thoroughly updated, from its Chevy MyLink infotainment system to its tight, precise suspension. On hard cornering in the hills above Palm Springs, it held flat in the turns without the swaying associated with older sedans. Though there is no manual transmission available -- remember, hardly any options -- the SS had loads of power that make it a joy to drive.
The SS also carries Chevrolet's colors in NASCAR Sprint Cup racing. Leone says that through the SS racing car, Chevy will gain another avenue for gathering tips and for testing technology that can pay off on the street.
Because of its high profile, SS will play a large rol! e at deal! erships. It will be a drawing card to bring people to showrooms, even if they walk away having bought something else from the line.
SS is "meant to be a halo car for Chevy and enhances our performance car offerings," Leone says, including Corvette and Camaro.
At least one analyst who drove it here thinks it stands a reasonable chance in the marketplace.
"The fit and finish of the car is absolutely first rate," says Joe Phillippi of AutoTrends Consulting. "The performance of the car is just terrific." Rather than comparing it to its Detroit competitors, Phillippi thinks it can go up against the best of the German performance sedans.
"It's like buying a (BMW) M5 for $30,000 off," he says.
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