2014 Chevrolet SS: A Daytona Winner's Namesake, Built in Australia

Rick Hendrick had a reason to look pleased in January 2013. The team owner, whose Hendrick Automotive Group had sold more than 120,000 vehicles in 2011, told reporters that after his team tested the new race car at Daytona earlier that month, "we started getting orders or deposits on the car." The car he meant was a street sedan nobody could yet buy: the Chevrolet SS, to be unveiled at Daytona the following month and sold at Chevrolet dealers in the fall. The headline over the story used the old phrase: win on Sunday, sell on Monday. Hendrick said the new car was "going to bring people into the showrooms."¹

Chevrolet arranged the reveal to coincide with racing. Its press text said the 2014 SS would debut at Daytona International Speedway on the weekend the SS race car made its NASCAR debut in the Daytona 500. That race, in February 2013, was also the debut of NASCAR's new Gen-6 car, and Jimmie Johnson won it for Hendrick Motorsports, his second Daytona 500 victory, with Hendrick's cars finishing first and second. "Boy, to run 1-2, man, what a day," Hendrick said. The race and the showroom launch had been put on the same weekend, and the race delivered.^2,3

The showroom argument was about absence. Mark Reuss, president of General Motors North America, said the Chevrolet brand had been "largely built on the strength of rear-drive performance sedans, yet it's been 17 years since we've offered one." Chevrolet called the SS its first V-8, rear-wheel-drive performance sedan since 1996. Underneath, its press text said, was the global rear-drive architecture that also served the Camaro, the Caprice Police Patrol Vehicle and Holden's VF Commodore. The SS was, in other words, a Chevrolet by badge and by engine, and an Australian by birth.^2,4

Australian reviewers told that side of the story. Writing for CarsGuide in December 2013, Joshua Dowling described the SS as an export version of the Australian-built Holden Commodore and noted that this was not the first time: North Americans had eventually bought 38,000 Pontiac versions of the Commodore. The US car got the Corvette-sourced 6.2-liter V-8 that in Australia was normally reserved for HSV models, not the truck-derived 6.0-liter of the local Commodore SS. Earlier reports had put exports at just 1,500 cars a year; at the US media preview, Dowling reported, the real annual target was revealed to be closer to 4,500.⁴

The car Chevrolet priced was deliberately uncomplicated. The SS listed at $44,470 including a $995 destination charge and was subject to the federal gas-guzzler tax. Chevrolet said the LS3 was expected to deliver 415 hp at 5,900 rpm and 415 lb-ft at 4,600 rpm, through a six-speed automatic with TAPshift paddles and a 3.27 final drive; there was no manual for 2014. Brembo brakes with two-piece four-piston front calipers clamped 355 mm vented rotors, and forged 19-inch wheels carried Bridgestone tires, 245/40ZR19 in front and wider 275/35ZR19 at the rear. Chevrolet claimed near 50/50 weight distribution and 0-60 mph in about five seconds.^2,5,6,7

Standard equipment did most of the choosing for the buyer. Leather seating, a nine-speaker Bose system, a color head-up display and OnStar came with every car, and Fox News reported at the price announcement that the only factory options were a sunroof and a full-size spare. Paint came in five colors: Silver Ice Metallic, Red Hot 2, Phantom Black, Heron White and Mystic Green Metallic. Conceptcarz's specification table lists 3,975 pounds without stating how the weight was measured. No count by color, by sunroof or by spare tire has been published for the 2014 model year.^2,6,5

The road tests liked what they found. Dowling, driving in California, wrote that the car "felt like a European thoroughbred," with steering, body, chassis and brakes that felt tight and precise. Car and Driver's instrumented test of an automatic 2014 SS recorded 0-60 mph in 4.5 seconds and a 12.9-second quarter mile at 111 mph, as reported second-hand by LS1Tech. Those figures belong to that one test car, and they are quicker than Chevrolet's own claim of about five seconds to 60.^4,8,2

The sales ledger is where the story turns. The only model-year 2014 production figure found is a secondhand 3,530 from LSX Magazine citing the GM Heritage Center, with no stated basis. Sales aggregators, which carry identical figures and so count as one lineage, report 418 SS sedans sold in the United States in calendar 2013 and 2,479 in 2014. Those are deliveries by calendar year, mixing whatever model years were on the lots, not builds. Set beside the annual target of about 4,500 that CarsGuide reported from the US preview, a full calendar year of 2,479 sales came to a little more than half of the reported target.^9,10,4,11

Chevrolet answered the most obvious complaint within a year. For 2015 it made a six-speed manual available, alongside Magnetic Ride Control and other changes, and the manual car used a 3.70 axle where the automatic kept 3.27. That turned the 2014 car into the only SS year without a clutch pedal. A 2024 SlashGear retrospective puts the whole program, model years 2014 through 2017, at 12,924 cars, but it does not name its data source and does not divide the total by year, so it cannot say how many of those were 2014s. It does split the program by gearbox, 2,645 manuals from 2015 through 2017 and 10,279 automatics, and because the 2014 car had no manual, every 2014 SS sits somewhere inside that automatic figure.^7,12

The 2014 SS therefore sits in an odd spot for a car with such a good start. Its racing namesake won the Daytona 500 on the car's debut weekend, the street car carried a 415-hp V-8 in a car its maker said filled a 17-year gap, and drew praise from reviewers on two continents. Yet it came with one transmission and very few options, cost about $45,000, and found fewer American buyers in its first full year than the target reported at its launch. What survives in print is a well-documented specification, a handful of attributed test numbers, and calendar sales that stand in for a model-year production count nobody has published.^3,2,4,9