GTP Cool Wall: 7th Gen Chevy Impala SS. Voting Closed

I'm abstaining. Impalas are really hit and miss for me, and although the SS above has some of the right ingredients for coolness, it also doesn't look special enough and given similar competition (things like a Mercury Marauder or P71) I don't find it as cool. I can't bring myself to call it uncool either though.

Uncool. The car is almost exclusively owned by want to be gangstas and drug dealers. It is also a popular donk car, which is really uncool.

The car was also on the same platform as such snoozemobiles as the Buick Roadmaster and the Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser. This made it weight slightly more then my house. Then they stuck a pretty pitiful performing engine in the car, a 5.7L that puts out 260hp? It's little wonder the thing hit 60 in over 7 seconds. My Blazer could hit 60 almost that quick, which is sad.

Styling? Rather meh, it's not ugly, nor does it stand out. It's just 18ft of car.

What saves this from going seriously uncool though is that I will give it credit for being rear drive. Big, heavy American land barges should be RWD though, so really it's giving it points for something it should be in the first place.

Cool, it was the last true SS model before the SS just became another trim level. The only thing I don't like is the very bland interior.

I don't know...

I think it's cool. As a secondhand buy... I can think of hundreds of things worse than a big, rear-wheel drive sedan with a torquey V8, a cop-suspension and an LSD.

Saved from being sub-zero because it's an automatic. A four-speed, at that. ...but that would have been forgiveable if it were a Ford Crown Victoria... which, personally... is frozen stiff...

niky

Saved from being sub-zero because it's an automatic. A four-speed, at that.

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But it was a 4L60-E trans, meaning it was put in everything GM offered and wasn't bad...unless of course it was put into a 2003 Blazer, then it exploded.

Joey D

But it was a 4L60-E trans, meaning it was put in everything GM offered and wasn't bad...unless of course it was put into a 2003 Blazer, then it exploded.

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Ah... it could be a three-speed drag-box rated for over a thousand horsepower, and it still wouldn't be right for me... I can appreciate automatics, but unfortunately, slushboxes just don't tick my cool-box.

On another note... I've just realized... this car is a direct descendant of the Caprice my mother used to drive me around in when I was three... way back in the 70's. Which makes it triply cool. (imagine... the sheer lifespan of that basic body-on-frame design!)

It was the last truly American car we had... after that we had a Chevrolet Monza with the four-cylinder... not very impressive... the Ford Laser that replaced it felt faster with just half the displacement, and was much nippier around corners. Both rusted away to nothingness pretty quickly, though.

Big, ugly 90s American, with a huge engine making very little power.
Lacks any form of badge credibility and when seen over here would only be driven by someone you really wouldnt want a conversation with.

Fails every single one of my criteria for cool cars so:
Seriously uncool

Umm...This car had an LT1 not an LS1 as listed here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Impala#1994-1996

I've seen very nice very powerful modified version of these. These can be turned into really sweet cars. Most are ruined though.

the_fatadder

Lacks any form of badge credibility

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Right because Chevy has never made any vehicles before this... Right? And it still makes 260 hp/330 ft lb... And getting power out of this engine isn't something you should worry about as you could easily get some massive gains for relatively cheap.

I gave the car a Cool.. Its just not something you expect to be really loud and pretty fast.. Drop a manual in there and you will be doing mile long 11's.

Cool, but long since antiquated.

Also, lets not compare this to current cars. This was back in 1994-1996. While the LT1 may have been considered "underpowered" for the SS, it was still a rather decent engine itself.

speedy_2

Also, lets not compare this to current cars. This was back in 1994-1996. While the LT1 may have been considered "underpowered" for the SS, it was still a rather decent engine itself.

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But its not getting a million horsepower per liter like my Supra JZYUG$#UH#GY@G with huge ass turbos... It must suck.

seriously uncool. two ton sedans with slushboxes are automatically seriously uncool. ( pun intended)

It's big, it's badass, and it's scary. If you've ever sat inside one you can just sort of feel how strong the car is. My brother owned one tuned to about 320hp. Honestly it didn't matter worth a damn that it's automatic. It really shouldn't be.

I was in an accident with my brother in this car, and the safety equipment worked perfectly even after 14 years without use. It's a shame the car was totaled, because i think they're going to shoot up in value pretty soon.

But i have to give the car a cool instead of a sub-zero because of the really bad versions of the car some people have out there.

Cool, very cool. Some might not like them because they weigh the same as Joey's house, or because compared to sedans today it's underpowered. But it really is a cool car despite it's shortcomings. It's a FULL (very full) size 4 door, rear drive v8. That's just what a muscle car always was, for the time, it was a fast car, now not so much, again though, the same holds true with most muscle cars. I know the interior is horrid, but everything on the outside and under the hood makes up for that in my book. If you could get the console shifter, then the interior was not as bad, but it was 90's GM soo... Since this car, the only other proper rear drive v8 sedan GM has made is the G8, (AFAIK) wow what a wait! This is a mean looking car, with proper mod's, can go like hell, just hope you have brakes to back up the go

👍 for enormous cars with 4 doors and eight cylinders

Prosthetic

Right because Chevy has never made any vehicles before this... Right? .

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Just because they have made plenty of vehicles, dosnt mean any of them were any good let alone whether they are cool or not.

In Europe Chevy is a very uncool brand, even the good cars they do make (such as the current generation Corvette) I wouldnt consider cool. Even more so now the brand is associated with the re badged Dawoo rubbish.....

As for the power, my issue with it is that in Europe engineers could get higher power (naturally aspirated) out of smaller, more efficient 6 cylinder blocks (for example BMW were getting over 300bhp out of the 3.2 6 cylinder in the M3 in the mid 90s), Huge capacity & low power just dosnt appeal to me...

As for the fact that it can be modified to get more power and do quick drag racing times, that just makes it even more uncool in my eyes. Especially as the latter (again in my opinion) is the single most uncool type of motorsport I could think of... (not to mention that having to explain to everyone "my car is good because i've done xyz to it and it will do a 1/4 mile in abc" is seriously uncool...

I wasn't going to respond until I read the last paragraph. Please point out where I said you can easily get more power into it so you can drag race it?

And I didn't read your location before I responded.. I should of figured since anything remotely related to the USA is automatically stupid, excessive and for rednecks.

EDIT: I'm just not going to respond anymore.. I'm getting in these stupid nit picky moods when reading these threads.

cool, 54%

the_fatadder

As for the power, my issue with it is that in Europe engineers could get higher power (naturally aspirated) out of smaller, more efficient 6 cylinder blocks (for example BMW were getting over 300bhp out of the 3.2 6 cylinder in the M3 in the mid 90s), Huge capacity & low power just dosnt appeal to me...

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Yes they could make the horsepower, but not the torque. Everyone seems to be looking at the 260hp figure, but what about the 330ft-lb of torque? That's the sort of thing you need for a 2 ton sedan!

(not to mention that having to explain to everyone "my car is good because i've done xyz to it and it will do a 1/4 mile in abc" is seriously uncool...

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But isn't that the definition of a sleeper, which is the kind of car most people (here at least) want? If it looks like a 2 ton brick, but can accelerate like a 1 ton sports coupe, people will think it's cool over a 1 ton ricer that accelerates and sounds like a 3 ton blender-motor powered barge!

speedy_2

Also, lets not compare this to current cars. This was back in 1994-1996. While the LT1 may have been considered "underpowered" for the SS, it was still a rather decent engine itself.

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It was a decent engine for the Corvette, not for a 2 ton sedan. If you want to move that much weight quickly you need a lot more cowbell under the hood.

I think it was more of the same in the wave of fugly design coupled with hugely powerful engine on a suspension resembling wooden table that has been soaked in sea-water for 3 years.

I think 7 seconds is fast enough for the mid-90s...

Sub-Zero, I didn't nomiate it thinking that it suck.

It's big, heavy, a bit rare and it has the SS badge. It's was the last real impala (RWD) and yes it's on the same base as the buick roadmaster, the cadillac fleetwood and the caprice so what? This would probably own a couple of ricers and that alone deserves a sub-zero for me. I mean it's as long as a limo, weights like a house but still faster than a civic. That's an awesome FULL side sedan, well the last one unfortunately...

Sub Zero

Last of the real SS Impalas, and the last hurrah for the V8 rwd cars from GM. (excluding Camaro and Corvette)

GM turned the rather ugly and bloated Caprice into something pretty good looking. Giving it an underrated Corvette LT1 was nice too. 0-60 in seven seconds for an affordable full size car back in the mid '90's was pretty good.

Simply put, this is one of my all-time-favorite Chevrolet products. Its Sub-Zero mainly because they weren't trying too hard to make it be. Its essentially a police car with a luxed-up interior and exterior, and by golly, it works. Its a blue collar luxury car, as the Impala has always been, and by the time the last ones rolled off the line in 1996, it was already prepared to become an instant classic. We've had two in my family, my favorite being the green '96 my uncle had.

I think for "Chevrolet people," it was a home run. For everyone else, it seems pretty iffy. You either liked it, or you didn't. The closest we're going to get again to having a car like this will be secondhand Caprices from the Police next year, and I'm crossing my fingers that GM gets the message loud and clear that they need to do this car again, in small numbers, to keep the flame alive.

the_fatadder

(not to mention that having to explain to everyone "my car is good because i've done xyz to it and it will do a 1/4 mile in abc" is seriously uncool...

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"My car is fast."

That is all that will EVER need to be said. Most people don't care much for cornering, most people find it cool when something can make a lot of noise and go from one place to another in a straight line very, very quickly.

Sub-Zero: Great looking in my opinion, that black suits it perfectly. The fact that driving one wouldn't make me look like a drug dealer or a wannabe gangsta seals the deal for me. Along with rear wheel drive.

How in the hell can this be sub-zero ?

Codename L

Sub-Zero: Great looking in my opinion, that black suits it perfectly. The fact that driving one wouldn't make me look like a drug dealer or a wannabe gangsta seals the deal for me. Along with rear wheel drive.

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If you drove one in the Detroit area you would be a drug dealer for sure, probably get shot at too.

nevertell

How in the hell can this be sub-zero ?

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A lot of people have given there opinions, I suggest reading them. And while we are at it care to give us a reason why it's seriously uncool?