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Full Text COPYRIGHT Petersen Publishing Company 1994
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The first problem is that a Caprice Classic looks like your dad's car. The second problem, Caprice power, is related to the first. Even if you bought a 5.7-liter-equipped LTZ model last year, with its top-line 180 horse-power, you still don't look bad. You aren't going to pick up any cheerleaders in this car. Fortunately, the loan arranger is here to help you. This isn't a famous masked man, but the finance wizard down at the Chevy store where you sign the note on the back-in-black '94 Impala SS. The car is back to save the town after a 25-year hiatus, and this time, the good guys are wearing black.

The first Impala SS (for Super Sport, Simply Stupendous, or Sorry, Speeding) since 1969 rolled off the assembly line in Arlington, Texas, February 14. It's been a long, dry season for such hot full-size, rear-drive sedans. Chevy badly needed the SS model to shore up a flagging performance image.

Some of you, however, will have to wait until next year to get one. Only about 6000 copies will be made in the '94 model run due to an assembly choke-point attributed to the wheel supplier, but next year, more than 12,000 units can be planned if demand warrants. Consequently, this car is a rare and elemental thing, like plutonium, with enough street performance to be proud of.

The Impala badge fails to disguise the Capriciousness of the underlying car. Yeah, it's built from Caprice Classic bits, but the good ones used (up until now) only on police packages. Historically, going back to the first appearance of the nameplate in '58 as a trim option on the Chevy Bel Air, the Impala began as a clone. In '59, the success of the package inspired it to become a stand-alone variation, and in '61, the Super Sport hit the streets as a performance model of Impala coupes, sedans, and convertibles. The badge was retired in '69. Now it's back as a new bad boy born of the Caprice line, but in sedan form only.

The wait was worth it. An impressive 260 horsepower is supplied by Chevy's LT1 5.7-liter V-8, the same power pump provided for the police car and a direct and close descendent of that used in the Corvette. The neo-classic small-block eight gives the Impala SS impressive low-end punch and a charge to redline. New for the V-8 in '94 is sequential fuel injection for more precise fuel metering and a powerful new powertrain control module that can oversee the fuel injection, the "Opti-Spark" ignition system, and the shift points of the 4L60-E electronically controlled four-speed automatic transmission.

Compared to the output of last year's LO5 engine, the SS LT1 makes 80 horsepower more and an additional 30 pound-feet of torque. Impala avoirdupois tips the scales at slightly over 4200 pounds, but plenty of git is ready to be spurred into action by your right foot. Careful modulation of the throttle is necessary to keep rear-wheel contribution to global warming down to the indispensable minimum, but the car flat goes, bud, no kidding. It clocked an impressive 0-60 time of  7.1 seconds, compared to 8.5 seconds in our last Caprice test (April '93). Yet despite the improvements, this engine also starts to run out of breath in higher rpm registers like the V-8 it replaced. The quarter-mile dial of 15.4 seconds at 91.1 mph is 1.2 seconds and 7.7 mph faster than the last 5.7-liter Caprice we tested, making this significantly quicker than the legendary SS396 Impalas of yore.

In instrumented testing, the SS shined most brightly in braking from 60 mph. At a staggering 120 feet, it's about a boat and trailer shorter (13 feet) than in our last Caprice test. Though the car comes equipped with GM's first-class Delco ABS VI as standard equipment--same as the Caprice--the brakes are radically upgraded for the SS. The four-wheel ventilated power disc system includes huge 12.1-inch rotors (gratifyingly visible behind the classy five-spoke mags), modernized from the Caprice's standard 9.5-inch rear drums.

Its home-sweet-home is the street, and here, chassis improvements made over the last 25 years stand out. The Impala's front suspension features the same independent short and long arms, steel alloy coil springs, and stabilizer bar as the current Caprice, though the settings are firmed up to heavy-duty standards. In the rear, all cars on the platform have a four-link live axle with coils, stabilizer, and shock absorbers 10 millimeters larger; the Impala is tuned stiffer. Handling, with quick firm-feel power steering, is so good this setup ought to be expanded to the entire Caprice brotherhood. The SS has a natural tendency toward tail-happiness, we found, but clocked 62.9 mph (versus the Caprice's 61.7) in our 600-foot slalom. An 0.83g figure was scrubbed off theskidpad, a negligible difference from the Caprice's 0.82.

The Impala SS is as great a value as it is a performance statement. Your $23,355 buys the right engine, ride, and performance. And best of all, it ain't Your Dad's Car--unless you're Luke Skywalker.