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A drone captures the Mustangs writing 10,000,000 in honor of the 10 millionth Ford Mustang at Flat Rock's assembly plant
Ford Motor Company

Camaro Hot Wheels 2018 Edition(Photo: Chevrolet)

On a cold winter morning, school day never started with an alarm clock.

Dad was walking in the bedroom and gently wrapping the blinds of my windows, singing: "Wake up, head in the air. Wake up today. Wake up, little sleeper. "

And I would throw JCPenney's pretty yellow blankets and get up to kiss my forehead.

Then dad left my room and went to make instant coffee. I usually went to my closet to buy corduroy pants and a woolen cardigan, meet him at the small kitchen round table to get a boiled egg on a toast. We cut our toast twice in one direction, then twice in another, like a tic-tac-toe board. And we were eating our nine bites together, as dad read a folded newspaper in his left hand.

After what seemed like long enough, but could not be very long, because Dad had to go to his law office in Warren, I headed for the bathroom to brush my teeth. Dad boiled some water on the stove and went out to clear the snow from the driveway. He came in, pulled the pan off the boiling water and went back outside to pour that hot water on the locks of the frozen doors of our 1973 Red Camaro.

This car has never spent a day in the dilapidated garage at the back of our property at Grosse Pointe.

These mornings were still calm. No radio. No TV. No dogs barking nearby. Our cats Phyllis and Charlie were sleeping on the old radiators in the dining room.

I climbed into the bucket seats of this Camaro and headed for Richard Elementary School, located on McKinley Avenue, a few blocks away. I checked to see if ChapStick in my coat pocket kept my lips from cracking and bleeding in freezing weather.

I still remember the heaviness of the heavy passenger door as I greeted Dad and slammed it.

It's so hard to believe that 40 years have passed since my last session in a Chevrolet Camaro.

& # 39; Saint, the mackerel. It's orange?

I never knew, as a child, that General Motors had designed this car to compete with the popular Ford Mustang. Or that the Camaro comes from the English French word meaning "friend" or "comrade". Or that the specialized press in the automotive sector learned in 1967 that a Camaro was a "vicious little animal that eats Mustangs".

For me, a Camaro was just a car driven by my father.

So when he learned that I was driving recently – an Orange Crush 2018 Camaro 2SS Coupe with a V8 engine and a 6-speed manual gearbox – he was impressed.

"Holy, mackerel. It's orange? He said. "And a stick? You drive the gear lever? "

Yes. The special edition of the 50th anniversary of Hot Wheels.

Ca-razy fabulous.

My face really hurt me to smile.

When I crossed the Blue Water Bridge to get to Sarnia with fries topped with cheese curds and gravy – the poutine from Canada – it was fun to sit at the same time. Inside the restaurant while an international crowd was gathering around the Camaro. When I went to Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, buyers went into the street to look out the window and talk about design. Men and women emphasized different characteristics, smiling and nodding. When I left the vehicle at a gas station, leaving my fiance alone, pretty girls approached him to comment on his coolness. He said that he would be happy to own the car and be next to it.

But the reader?

Return your therapist and buy a Camaro. (Or a Mustang, I'll be back in a minute.)

It did not matter that you struggled awkwardly out of the bucket seat. Or that your neighbors hate the engine's engine. Or that it might look like a midlife crisis.

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Holding the steering wheel with your left hand, changing gear with your right hand and going fast on the road give off intense pleasure. Feel the powerful engine clear the mind.

It's better than Cedar Point's best roller coaster. You do not think about work, text messaging, making phone calls, setting deadlines, doing dry cleaning, cleaning the house or repairing dirty gutters or diapers.

It's a driving experience that brings a strange combination of joy and relaxation.

No doubt, the Camaro is a car with attitude. It belongs to the wrong boy – or the wrong girl.

And I like this quality.

And the Mustang?

For comparison, I drove the 2018 Ford Mustang GT Coupe with a V8 engine.

Since the two have been rivals since the beginning, it seemed appropriate.

People driving Mustangs beckoned to me, like what happens between bikers. It's a fraternity with common values ​​and no car is as popular in the world as the Mustang.

The fact is that both cars inspire passion. They have a very different driving feeling, though.

I stopped to talk to a guy after lunch while he was entering his Mustang by a miserable day of ice on the courthouse parking lot in Plymouth.

"Do you really drive this thing in the winter? You do not have a second car?

He said, "I'm retired. This is my only car. I like that. And not only do I drive it in the winter, but I have sometimes gone down and increased the heat, even when it is below zero. It makes me feel alive.

Muscle cars are one thing. And I started to understand all that.

Yes, people talk about the Dodge Challenger and the Charger. But I wanted to focus on the rivalry cars of the old school. You choose Camaro or Mustang, a bit like Coca-Cola versus Pepsi. Or Michigan vs. Michigan State.

The fact is that a Dodge Charger, after driving on the Cadieux road to I-94, embarked the Camaro Papa's in the back end one afternoon to go to grandmother and grandfather . This big ugly loader hit us hard, but did not cause a breach. Dad panicked when I flew to the dashboard and he thought I had lost a tooth. It turns out that I had some white chewing gum in my mouth.

Like sitting in a bathtub

My friend John McElroy says that the Mustang is more convenient than a car everyday.

"The Camaro looks like a bunker, with very small side windows. When you're indoors, it's like sitting in a bathtub with poor rear visibility. There is not much free space and the rear seat is very narrow. The opening of the trunk lid is quite small, "said John.

All true.

"It's a driving pleasure, but the Mustang too, and that's the practical side of Mustang everyday that explains its lead over the Camaro," said John.

OK that works.

In recent years, most buyers were men aged 35 to 55 and earning between $ 50,000 and $ 100,000, said Peter Nagle, senior analyst at IHS Markit.

Buyers have bought nearly 67,000 Mustangs so far this year, more than one in three cars in the sports car segment. And Chevy sold nearly 44,000 Camaros in September, more than one in five cars in the segment.

"When these vehicles were reintroduced to the market, the style deliberately harnessed the historic look of the iconic muscle cars of the 1960s and 1970s. It was assumed that buyers would be male baby boomers trying to revive their youth." said Bob Martin, director of research at The Car Lab, a design consulting firm located in Southern California. To the surprise of many, however, the demographic profile of these buyers was and remains much younger. These people appreciate the performance. "

Women say they love to drive these cars because they remind us of another time. A former leader said that she would prefer a Camaro or a Mustang rather than expensive jewelry or an unusual vacation. Driving a stick provides total stress relief. Like an Etch a Sketch for worries.

Mustang was a bestseller since at least 2000-2009, then the 2010-2012 Camaro, and then the Charger from 2013 to 2014, according to IHS Markit data. Now, the Mustang is back on top.

According to special products, a Camaro or Mustang can range from $ 26,000 in the north to $ 60,000. Each comes with manual and automatic transmissions.

All this discussion about the Mustang reminded me of Molly McQueen, the granddaughter of actor Steve McQueen, whose car chase scenes in "Bullitt" on the San Francisco hills made the Mustang even more famous.

Molly went to town for the Detroit auto show in January 2018. She arrived secretly to learn to drive a gear stick and film a promotional spot for the world premiere of the car. birthday edition of Mustang Bullitt.

The 31-year-old actress and screenwriter said at her launch that she loved the experience of driving a Mustang stick.

Now, all these months later, I reached out to Molly. I mean, she drives an Audi through the hills of Hollywood. His life is pretty amazing.

& # 39; Just in the lead & # 39;

Has she ever thought about the Mustang experience?

"My Audi is an automatic," said Molly. "With the Mustang, you do not just throw it. You must be present at all times. It's a lot more a dance. Maybe mine is more like a step in two. And I would like to make a waltz. "

She added, "I'm thinking of the experience. For me, it's more like, "I can not wait to start over again."

Molly's famous grandfather died before he was born. She repeated many times that she only knew him through movies and stories told by his mother.

But somewhere, Molly said, driving in a car that Steve McQueen associates with the world allows him to feel closer to his grandfather.

It's often the experiences with cars that take us back to the people we love.

Dad does not remember all the details of the past, but he remembers very well his Camaro and the time he spent together: going to school or carrying the Hobie Cat on a trailer for catamaran regattas in the state.

"I bought this new Camaro and I kept it for a long time," Papa said. "The direction, the performance of the V8? Just in the lead. This Camaro was a bucket of rust when I finally got rid of it. I really, really liked this car, darling. "

Phoebe Wall Howard is an automotive journalist who periodically writes comments on the place of cars in everyday life. Contact her at [email protected] or 313-222-6512. Follow her on Twitter @phoebesaid

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