Chevy unveiled the car in concept form at the Detroit Motor Show in January, saying it planned to gauge reaction before committing itself to building the car as a production model.
This month it announced that the new Camaro will be built at General Motors
of Canada’s Oshawa factory.Early production versions will roll down the line at the end of 2008, with sales starting in the first quarter of 2009.
Chevy characterises the new Camaro as a “thoroughly modern interpretation of
the 1969 icon.”
It says the production version will look almost identical to the concept car.
It has the traditional pony car layout – wide stance, long bonnet, short boot, two doors and rear-wheel drive.
Chevy says the car will be practical for everyday use, able to carry four adults, and despite its 400bhp, 6.0-litre LS2 V8, will be fuel-frugal.
The V8 will feature General Motors’ Active Fuel Management cylinder deactivation technology. Chevy says that will help deliver highway economy in the 30mpg bracket.
GM designers drew inspiration from the 1969 model year version of the first-generation Camaro, and also took cues from the Chevrolet Corvette and sources as diverse as the YF-22 fighter plane.
GM’s chief performance car designer Tom Peters says the new Camaro’s “overall proportions, long (bonnet) and powerful fender forms say ‘this is a front-engine, rear-wheel drive performance vehicle’.”
The Camaro concept car ran 20-inch front and 22-inch rear wheels.
The Camaro’s small-block LS2 V8, used in the Corvette and current Holden Commodores, has an alloy block for low weight, and is mated to a
six-speed manual gearbox.
The basic platform for the new Camaro will be the all-new Holden VE Commodore’s, the US coupe will use a shorter wheelbase version of the same basic architecture.
The Commodore platform was chosen ahead of other possible GM rear-drive chassis like the Cadillac STS’s because it was wide enough to meet the Camaro’s design parameters.
The same chassis may be used for a Holden Monaro replacement.
Holden remains officially tight-lipped on future Monaros, though it has said such a car would always have a place in a Holden line-up.
Australian magazine Motor has speculated that the Camaro platform will be used for the next Monaro.
Whether Holden would build another car called a Monaro is a moot point – it auctioned off, globally on eBay, what it termed the “very last Monaro” last February It sold to a Queensland businessman who paid $Au 187,600 for the uniquely-finished and specified car.
“I think, being the last in the line, it will be a great investment,” said the successful bidder, Darryl Mattingley. “I also wanted to buy the
car because the money is going to such a good cause (the Leukaemia Foundation).”
So should a coupe version of the Commodore turn up on a Camaro chassis, it may be called something other than a Monaro.
