Camaro LT ($25,200) upgrades with sport cloth seats, six-way power front seats, foglamps and integral front fascia, and 18-inch painted aluminum wheels. The 2LT ($28,350) includes leather upholstery and 9-speaker Boston Acoustics sound system, Head Up display, rearview camera, 19-inch aluminum wheels, and the gauge cluster with oil temp, oil pressure, volts, and transmission fluid temperature.

Camaro SS ($31,850) features the 6.2-liter V8, a Tremec 6-speed manual gearbox (same as Corvette) with limited slip differential, and the Sport cloth seats. The SS has special exterior trim, a beefier suspension, 20-inch painted aluminum wheels, and four-piston Brembo disc brakes. The 2SS ($3,600) upgrades to leather-appointed seats, heated front seats, rearview camera, multi-function auxiliary gauges, head-up display, Bluetooth, PDIM wireless auxiliary device control, Universal home remote, steering wheel-mounted controls, auto-dimming mirror, heated mirrors. There's a new optional suspension package for the SS models, called FE4. The 45th Anniversary package ($1,375) includes the retro hood and deck stripes, HID headlamps with integrated LED halo rings, 20-inch aluminum wheels, and interior trim with accent stitching and anniversary logos.

Camaro ZL1 adds a supercharger to the 6.2-liter V8 to get a mind-bending 580 horsepower and 556 foot-pounds of torque, with traction control and magnetic ride control.

Camaro LT Convertible ($30,100) and Camaro SS Convertible ($37,900) are equipped similarly to the coupes. Nine production exterior colors are available, with tops in black or tan.

Safety equipment on all Camaros includes electronic stability control with traction control, anti-lock brakes, frontal airbags, front side airbags, airbag curtains, and tire pressure monitor. A rearview camera is optional.

Viewed head-on, classic 1969 Camaro headlights appear. Behind the shark nose with black mesh grille, up on the long aluminum hood, there is a suggestive power bulge for the V8 engine. It's the long hood and shark nose that catch your eye and trigger your longing. The SS has an additional wide and thin black simulated intake on the nose.

Slight twin humps on the roof are visible at the top of the steeply raked 67-degree windshield that helps produce a 0.37 Cd in the LS and LT, and 0.35 Cd in the SS.

Viewed from the rear, and especially from above, the lines suggest the 1963 fastback split-window Corvette. That classic Corvette made a strong impression on the Camaro's young designer, Sang Yup Lee, who came to the U.S. from Korea as a boy and grew up in the California car culture.

Styling gills located just forward of the rear wheels add a nice touch to the Camaro. Even though the power dome hood and cooling gills are not functional, they all work as touches of style and don't come across as phony.

The shapely strong hips stand out, like the long hood, an edgy element the designer is most proud of, because they took so much work. He said it took 113 tries to get the one-piece sheetmetal right, from the doors and pinched beltline rearward. There's no indifferent craftsmanship with this car, that's for sure.

The rigid B-pillar is blacked-out, thus creating a clean outline for the side glass, blending into a handsome hardtop roofline. The short rear deck climbs upward and looks hot. The twin taillights look like blinking red sunglasses in each corner, under the small lip of a rear spoiler.

The convertible chassis is reinforced to stiffen the body structure, with a cross brace under the hood to connect the front shock towers, a transmission brace, an underbody tunnel brace, and underbody V-shaped braces front and rear. This helps the convertible ride and handle more like the coupe. Chevrolet says the convertible chassis is rigid enough that the suspension didn't need to be changed from the coupe, and that the Camaro convertible has more torsional stiffness than the BMW 3 Series convertible.

Designers and engineers erased the appearance of ribs in the convertible top, by using composite rather than aluminum knuckles, extending the material below the beltline, and revising the stitch lines. The result is a top that appears smooth, taut and carefully tailored, while retaining the sleek roofline of the coupe.

The standard cloth bucket seats are good, although the bolstering isn't fully there for hard cornering. It's a tough compromise to make, given the spectrum of Camaro buyers. The low bolsters make getting in and out of the Camaro easier. Excellent leather upholstery is available in black, gray, beige and two-tone Inferno Orange, and interior materials are good. The front seat slides 8.5 inches and the steering wheel tilts and telescopes, so drivers of all sizes will fit. The stitched leather wrap on the steering wheel is nice, and the wheel itself has been changed for 2012.

The instrumentation graphics have been revised for 2012, and the new instruments are better. A recessed speedometer and tachometer are set in square housings, a nod to the classic Camaro interior. Between those two big gauges is a driver information center controlled via a stalk on the steering column.

The climate control buttons on the center stack appear to have been designed for looks, and thus aren't as functional as they could or should be. An optional console-mounted gauge package includes oil pressure, oil temperature, volts and transmission fluid temperature. The information is good, although the location down by the driver's knee makes it difficult to see while driving.

The windows are small and the A-pillars are wide, so it makes the cabin feel a bit cave-like. Visibility through the windshield is compromised by the long hood and raked windshield, although careful location of the driver's seat helps. Rear visibility over the driver's shoulder isn't very good, but then it's impossible to make it good with a roofline this sporty.

The trunk is deep but the opening isn't large and it's almost flat. This compromise is worth it for the handsome rear deck. There's a pass-through to the trunk behind the rear seat, which isn't easy to crawl into, and feels like a pit.

Rear-seat legroom measures 29.9 inches, a distinction, as few cars today break below that 30-inch mark. You'll want to avoid riding in the back seat.

The convertible top is made of thick, durable canvas. An acoustical headliner material is designed to provide a quiet, coupe-like ride when the top is up, and the soft top incorporates a glass rear window and rear window defogger. The power folding convertible top retracts in about 20 seconds. It folds in a simple Z-pattern and latches with a single handle located at the center of the windshield header. The transmission doesn't have to be in Park for the top to be activated, allowing fast lowering while stopped at a red light, or when it starts raining in a dead-stop traffic jam.

The Camaro is a hefty car, 3860 pounds for the V8 and 3800 for the V6, so the handling couldn't be called nimble, just secure and satisfying. The new Mustang is nearly 300 pounds lighter, and feels it.

We never encountered a harsh moment with the ride, in either the LT or the SS. We spent week in a 426-hp SS in the Pacific Northwest, and before that one day driving east of San Diego, where we had the chief designer, Canadian Gene Stafanyshyn, riding shotgun and giving us the backstory. He's the guy you can thank for the true programming of the TAPshift manual automatic transmission. It does what you tell it to do, nothing more. We love that. Stafanyshyn said he too hates manual automatic transmissions that shift on their own.

One especially nice thing about the transmission is that when you're in sixth gear on the freeway and lightly accelerate, it won't kick down when it doesn't need to. It uses its sufficient torque.

The Camaro LT with its 3.6-liter V6 shines. We said it was the future in 2010, and we must have been right because now, two years later, other manufacturers (most notably Ford) have powerful and efficient new V6 engines. The Chevy V6 sounds sweet and gets 30 miles per gallon highway with the 6-speed automatic and optional 2.92 rear axle ratio. With the standard 3.27 gear, it accelerates from 0-60 mph in 5.9 seconds, and will do the quarter mile in 14.4 seconds, which is quick in anyone's book.

The LT will also stop from 60 mph in a superb 106 feet, as measured by Motor Trend magazine, or 128 feet according to GM. Surprisingly, the SS with its four-piston Brembo brakes doesn't do much better, but the Brembos can be used harder without fade. And the vented rotors are huge, 14 inches front and 14.4 inches rear on the SS, compared to the LT's matching fronts and 11.8-inch rears.

The V6 LT with a 6-speed manual gearbox is the most versatile sporty engine-transmission matchup. The gearbox is smooth if not buttery, and easily shifts down into first gear for hairpin turns. Chevrolet says the throws are short, yet there's a Hurst short-throw shifter available as a dealer option. We'll take it. We tested it in the Shelby Mustang, and it made a world of difference.

Two 6.2-liter V8 engines are offered in Camaro SS models: the 426-horsepower LS3 is paired with manual gearboxes, while the 400-horsepower L99 comes in cars with automatics. Both engines are derived from the engine that debuted on the 2008 Corvette, with an aluminum block with cast iron cylinder liners, and aluminum heads. The L99 features the Active Fuel Management System, which saves fuel by shutting down half of the engine's cylinders during certain light-load driving conditions, such as highway cruising.

The Camaro SS is humongous fast, so if you're driving it hard, you're deep into the danger zone with the law or you're on a race track. Its throaty exhaust turns heads. The SS with the manual transmission and 426-horsepower engine revs to 6600 rpm, while the automatic with its 400 horsepower only revs to an underachieving 6000.

It's hard to say who wins the perennial muscle-car battle between the Camaro, Mustang GT, and Dodge Challenger; those with a favorite aren't likely to change their minds. But a battle of the stats gives the Mustang the edge, with its beautiful new 32-valve 5.0-liter engine. We think it's more enjoyable to drive, too. The Mustang wins the pounds-per-horsepower battle, 8.7 to 9.1 (412/3580 vs. 426/3860), but the Camaro SS still wins in the quarter-mile, 13.0 to 13.2. Not that two tenths of a second makes any difference in how much you enjoy your car.

NewCarTestDrive.com correspondent Sam Moses drove the Camaro coupe and convertible models near San Diego and in the Pacific Northwest.