Despite ending production in 2023, the lineage of the Chevrolet Camaro nameplate may merely be in purgatory. GM Authority claims that a General Motors team has been working on a plan for a more affordable next-generation Chevrolet Camaro, but the plan has run into a snag.
As GM Authority reported, “Upon being presented to decision-makers, the proposal was ‘blown apart’ due to the business case not being strong enough.” However, the plan isn’t dead yet, with GM Authority adding:
One source tells us that GM is still kicking the project around. “It’s still in play, but the light at the end of the tunnel is now dimmer,” the source tells us.
While reports of no outright cancellation are somewhat encouraging, management raising some fundamental issues could put a damper on morale. After all, this is the same company that decided to build an incredibly expensive 4.2-liter twin-turbocharged hot-vee V8 and then only use it in 1,200 cars. Fiscal responsibility hasn’t been this company’s historical strong suit, so if the business case for a new Camaro is deemed weak, things must be really bad.
Part of the problem might be that the appetite for coupes is currently quite small. In 2015, the first full year of the sixth-generation Mustang, Ford managed to sell 122,349 examples of its pony car. Flash forward a major model cycle, and Ford sold 48,605 Mustang coupes and convertibles in 2023, followed up by 44,003 in 2024. Admittedly, sales were affected by some teething issues launching the heavily revised 2024 model year Mustang, but that’s still a precipitous drop. It’s a similar deal with the Subaru BRZ. In 2013, the first full year of the Toyobaru, Subaru sold 8,587 units in America. Flash forward to 2022, the first full year of the second-generation car, and Subaru shifted just 3,345 coupes.
So what’s going on here? Well, believe it or not, young people actually still want coupes. A 2024 Insurify study of 4.5 million car insurance applications found that Generation Z was 239 percent more likely than average to buy a Toyota GR86. It’s a similar story with the Subaru BRZ. JD Power reported that the median age of new small sporty car buyers was 58 in 2021, while Maritz reported that the median BRZ buyer age in 2021 sat below 40.
Indeed, the real generational shift seems to fall on more mature demographics. The youngest millennials turn 29 this year, which means the vast majority of millennials are in their family-building years. It’s harder to justify a coupe when you’re toting around car seats, especially since they’ve grown so much bulkier than the flimsy plastic tubs we rode around in as kids. This points at a larger potential issue for a new Camaro’s business case — coupes are cool, but like Saves The Day, the car-buying public is through being cool. They have stuff to carry and passengers needing seats, and the rise of the crossover SUV has made lots of people realize that separate trunks aren’t the most practical cargo-hauling arrangements out there.
Indeed, while the midsize sedan segment is in a death spiral, the compact crossover segment is still booming. Last year, the Toyota RAV4 outsold the Ford F-150 in America, and four of the ten-best-selling new vehicles in America were crossover utility vehicles. It’s the right form factor for a lot of people, but the problem is that the crossover isn’t the right form factor for a Camaro. The sixth-generation car was renowned for its balance and handling, and enthusiasts would riot if Chevrolet’s pony car became yet another crossover.
One potential solution is to pull a page out of Chrysler’s playbook, a suggestion that sounds absurd at first glance given the Global Leyland clusterfuck Stellantis is going through right now, but might make sense once it’s explained. Back in the mid-2000s, Dodge revived the Charger coupe, except this time, not as a coupe. While this full-sized sedan was initially met with some uproar, it sold incredibly well throughout its lifespan because it paired four-door usability with V8 performance at a reasonable price point. It was a great mix of what buyers needed and what buyers wanted, so perhaps the next Camaro could be a little more usable than the last one.
After all, the sixth-generation Camaro rode on GM’s Alpha platform, the same one underneath the current Cadillac CT4 and CT5 sedans. It’s an architecture renowned for its handling that can accommodate four-cylinder, V6, and V8 powertrains, along with both rear-wheel-drive and all-wheel-drive and both two-door and four-door body styles. While some re-engineering would be required to build a five-door liftback on the Alpha platform, a sort of Audi A5 Sportback-style Camaro would be especially brilliant. Not only were the beloved third-generation and fourth-generation cars liftbacks, but a five-door liftback-body style offers some significant practicality benefits over a traditional sedan and could be just practical enough to coax pony car dreamers out of crossover utility vehicles.
Looking at what’s currently available in the Alpha platform, the 325-horsepower 2.7-liter turbocharged inline-four would be a perfect match for the 315-horsepower 2.3-liter turbocharged inline-four in the Ecoboost Mustang, and not only does the 455-horsepower 6.2-liter LT1 V8 fit, it would be a great match against the 480-horsepower Mustang GT. What’s more, the platform already offers the Tremec TR-6060 six-speed manual transmission for the row-your-own crowd.
While diehards would love another Camaro coupe, Chevrolet’s pony car might need to change a little to survive. Whether it’s a matter of bringing serious affordability or one of expanding the model’s practicality slightly, it’ll need to buck the trend of declining coupe sales to be feasible.
(Lead photo credit: Chevrolet)
Support our mission of championing car culture by becoming an Official Autopian Member.
-
This Chevy Camaro Trim May Be One Of The Most Underrated And Forgotten Sports Cars Of All Time
-
There Are Less Than 1,300 New Camaros For Sale Nationwide, So You Better Hurry Up If You Want One
-
You Could Once Buy A Chevrolet Camaro With A 90 Horsepower Engine
-
The 1984 Camaro Berlinetta Featured An Incredibly Useless ‘Reminder Spool’ Feature. Here’s How It Worked
-
The Brilliant Sixth-Generation Chevrolet Camaro Deserves A Better Send-Off Than This
Please send tips about cool car things to tips@theautopian.com. You could even win a prize!
A possible(probable? obvious?) reason for the popularity of BRZ/FRS/GR86 with the younger set: They are cheap. Cheaper than a miata. Cheaper than any pony car, even with a lame motor.
That motor is still 50-80hp more than the average commuter car and that’s plenty for most drivers
It doesn’t hurt that the standard transmission is a manual either
Sure, but the V8 exists which makes the rental spec version lesser. A rational person would just buy a Prius.
Oh, my mistake. I thought you were referring to the BRZ/86 motor as lame. I agree that it’s hard to stomach a 4 or 6 cylinder when there’s a V8 version of the same car
Having driven both I continue to stand by my take that the V6 is the sweet spot in the 6th gen Camaro
Krypton green v6 1LE is my unicorn for the gen 6. I’d rather get a C7 Stingray if I’m getting the V8
The LT1 is an excellent motor but if you wring it out as god intended you’ll be doing triple digit speeds before you can blink, and while it’s not solid rear axle Mustang bad it doesn’t need to be going 10/10ths to bite you. If you’re doing a lot track work I can see splurging for it but for a street car it’s overkill.
You can wring out the V6 on public roads without risking your license, it sounds nearly as good as the V8, the car is lighter with it, and it revs out to 7,000. If you want to fully enjoy your Camaro on the street it’s the way to go. I had one as a rental in Asheville last year and it was a real treat on mountain roads.
I had an SS as my honeymoon rental, and it was really cool too and sounded heavenly but other than an occasional pull on an empty backroad straight you really can’t enjoy it much without being reckless. I also averaged like 10 or 11 MPG that week and I wasn’t even driving it like a monkey the whole time.
I think its problem was that it was neither fish nor foul. It was compromised to be good on a track, but was too large and heavy to be a sports car (and expensive on consumables as a track car), neither of those are large markets, but the latter is bigger than the former and it’s expensive to track a car, so those guys can afford a lot more than a Camaro, but they don’t even really have to as the Corvette was so close in price. As a pony car, it was too cramped in spite of its size, difficult to see out of, and impractical with its tiny trunk. The Mustang did much of the same things, but was a bit more useful as a daily. The Challenger was smart to go the other way—a large coupe with practical enough rear seats and trunk with a more comfortable ride for the more numerous people who aren’t clipping apexes (and may live in the wide expanses of spaces where those barely exist) and want something stylish to drive to work that makes the right noises and can handle traffic, potholes, and can go for a weekend cruise with the family. I think the premise of a Camaro is dead. It can’t really be done smaller with today’s safety and available platforms, but going bigger is not a Camaro. I agree with many here that the next generation should really be something else, something larger, maybe Chevelle (old name aside, I would really like to see something that doesn’t rely on tradition to define what it should be today, however, Chevelles came in 4 door—and wagon—too).
Oh, it was foul all right.
Hahaha, yeah, that was a brain problem I wish I could say was intentional! Does kind of work, especially with that look they had to emergency facelift to.
The Challenger wasn’t a coupe like the others, it was the last 2- door sedan.
The sports sedan and crew cab pickup are definitely what sells. The mustang e doesn’t sell well they probably should have brought back a name instead of trying to add a sub brand. Dodge got away with it the charger because it was a dead product. On top of that 4 door chargers existed in Australia and New Zealand. Now there is unified platform between Dodge/ ram / jeep for the us and aus nz markets. I can’t see many Camero owners rushing to buy a 4 door camero. Reach deeper and maybe a name plate will fit that better Impala, Montie Carlo, Nova.
The Charger proves a four door muscle car has appeal. Enthusiasts will say it doesn’t, but the 1,682,051 sales would disagree. It appeals not only to enthusiasts, but people interested in it as a cool everyday driver and, perhaps as importantly for sales: police fleets. The 7th Gen Charger unseated the Crown Vic as the cop cruiser of choice. If Ford or Chevy were to get in the game they could have a slice too.
I agree a four door Camaro should be called something else. Chevelle is too cool a name not to bring back.
An anecdote for the appeal of a four door muscle/pony car: my grandfather worked at General Motors for 30 years. When he retired, he bought a Corvette. After a few years of owning it, he realized it wasn’t that useful to him and his only other option for the kind of style and power he wanted was a Charger. He’s had his Dodge for 8 years now and not once has he regretted jumping brands.
That being said, an Alpha platform Camaro 5 door liftback done right would be too small for consideration as a police car. (British cops get on just fine with Ford Fiestas but that’s another rant)
It might find use as a pursuit vehicle or highway patrol car.
Look to your past for answers, grasshopper. The Saturn Ion quad coupe shall bestow its
suicidereverse opening doors upon ye, so that you may go forth in profanity when someone parks too close to your door.I am not sure the data supports that statement. Being 239 percent more of virtually nothing is still virtually nothing.
There are dozens of us
I’ve heard all the praise regarding the last Camaro from a driving dynamics, track time, etc.. and I’m not arguing any of that.
The biggest flaw is that the last camaros were like driving a fucking coffin and a laughable trunk situation.
I might be in the minority here, but I like things to be as functional as possible, even for sportier cars. So they should also make any future ones all liftbacks too.
But this is also coming from someone who used a Fiat 500 abarth cabrio as a pickup truck to haul long items sticking straight out of the top from Home Depot lol.
Oh yeah, if you’re buying a car strictly for performance, that’s what Caterhams are for lol. Chevy did itself no favors by compromising all of the utility potential the platform had. Just look at the ATS coupe! Same platform, perfectly usable!
Or the Blackwings! Same platform, great to daily.
The worst part is, I don’t think the Camaro comes off as particularly better looking or sleeker than the Mustang, which is a far more usable car, and if GM had just given the Camaro a slightly larger greenhouse, I don’t think it’d turn away any buyers.
^ Exactly!
IIRC most period tests rated the Mustang higher only because you could actually live with it as a daily.
Came here to say this. Really all of the alpha platform cars need more glass and lower door lines
The idea of a 4 door Camaro makes sense. In the past, it only shared its platform with the Firebird, but alas….
I think a 4 door Camaro shouldn’t be named a Camaro though, but instead be a Chevelle or Nova, or a Monte Carlo (perhaps with the SS trim?)
Or…left field: call it a Monaro.
It may not be super high volume, but I think the Charger proves that a 4 door Dad-mobile that goes like hell has a small, but steady market. Its currently occupied by the Challenger, but also the A5/S5. The other Germans are a bit out of this price point in M or AMG guise, and Lexus got rid of the GS F-Sport, which also was roughly the same concept.
My next car will be a car, not an SUV, since the kids are older, and a Charger is on the potential list. But any of above real or theoretical sedans would also be on the test drive list.
The problem with the Alpha platform Camero wasn’t its capabilities. It’s that it was ugly. And it seemed to get even less attractive with each revision.
The recent Mustangs aren’t pieces of rolling Italian sculpture, but they’ve been a lot easier on the eye.
Or at least that’s my take on the latest pony car club members.
My thought is they need to move on from 1st Gen styling and try 2nd Gen styling.
Or better yet, stop trying to harken back to the past, and make something new, that still visually tells you, “Camaro”. They successfully did this in 1970, 1982 and 1993. Why the new car had to go back to 1969 and then essentially stay there, I have no idea. The people for whom the first gen hit nostalgically are no longer really your target market.
As a teenager in the late 90’s/early 2000’s, I really wanted a 4th Gen Camaro. Maybe they should go there, if they’re gonna retro it.
There should be plenty of used ones of those available.
Yes, but they come with 20+ year old GM problems.
Because Mustangs and Challengers went there. Instead of differentiating with a clean-sheet design, they played it safe and went retro with the most desirable (based on auction prices) version.
While I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing what they could do with a Gen 2 influenced design, I wouldn’t mind seeing what they could do with a purely forward-looking design.
“I wouldn’t mind seeing what they could do with a purely forward-looking design.”
I see a few ways this could go:
Scenario 1) Make something awful, incrementally make it into something awesome and then cancel it.
Scenario 2) Go bankrupt and get bailed out
Scenario 3) Slap a bowtie on a Cadillac and charge six figures for it.
Scenario 4) Make a blobby EV and christian it the e-Camaro
Scenario 5) Go bankrupt and get bailed out.
Scenario 6) Import a tiny Korean hatchback, slap a bowtie on it and call it the Minimaro.
Scenario 7) Import the very, very last of the secret Holden V8 interceptors they’ve been hiding in Australian warehouses, slap bowties on them, don’t advertise their existence and cancel the project due to lack of interest.
Scenario 8) Go bankrupt and get bailed out
Scenario 9) Build a giant pickup truck with historic pedestrian crushing potential and call it the new Camaro.
Scenario 10) Make a competitor to the Mustang that exceeds its rival’s propensity to plow into crowds while exiting cars and coffee meets
Scenario 11) combine scenario 9 and 10.
Scenario 12) Go bankrupt and get bailed out
Well, you get the idea.
While I get your point, Camaro design never went retro until the 5th gen, after the Mustang went retro, and most people appreciated the evolution of its design. Also, the Corvette has never gone retro, and although the C8 is definitely not the prettiest by any metric, it sure as hell advanced the design of the car. GM has the talent to do something cool, the old men and women in the C-suites just need to stay the hell out of the way.
No doubt. The problem of course is a Camaro built like that would be a cheaper, maybe better Corvette. I think GM wants to keep the Venn overlap between the Mustang high and the Corvette small.
Now that the Vette is mid-engined, it will be very distinct from a front-engined, RWD Camaro, even in the Camaro’s hottest form. Although it would be really cool, I don’t see the GM brass approving a 4-passenger mid-engined Camaro. So the Vette folks should be able to relax a bit and not shit their pants if a ZL1 Camaro can hit 200 MPH. The Vette will still be the exotic, super car based on layout alone. And I really don’t see any version of the Camaro coming anywhere close to the ZR1 Vette.
Nope. Those folks are busy fighting over Z06, Demon, and CT5V BW allocations. But you know who the 6th gen Camaro managed to appeal to? Younger enthusiasts…who appreciated it because it was a damn fine sports car, not because it harkened back to the halcyon days of old.
Given how the Ioniq 5 seems to be selling pretty well, I think they should move on to the 3rd gen styling.
Hear hear.
So much so that I propose that the phrase “rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic” be replaced with “Sixth gen Camaro emergency facelift.”
I would buy this if they make it. I’m no Camaro fan, so I don’t care about the nameplate’s integrity. If they do it right you’ll end up with a decent (if a little sporty/flashy) looking coupe with good handling, lots of tech, good space, and a V8 trim level with close to 500hp. If we get lucky there will even be a manual transmission. I’m not sure how well this would sell, but it’s exactly what I want. My current car is a Chevy SS (which shared platforms with the Camaro) and at 10 years old it’s already hard to source certain wear parts.
They should have been doing this from the beginning. The Cadillac sedans had no Chevy counterparts except for the Camaro, where if they had done a Camaro based sedan and called it the Chevelle they would have printed money. A Dodge Charger without the Mopar build quality.
Then this generation could have introduced an electric Chevelle to go alongside the gassers. GM continues to fumble a lot of potential in their engineering and marketing
Idk, the Challenger and the new Charger both seem to have usable rear seats and an actual amount of trunk space while still remaining a coupe. 2 doors does introduce more inconvenience than 4 but imo it’s kind of sad that my much smaller Fiata has a larger trunk *and* is a convertible. I am of the opinion that GM simply needs to design the car better than go the sedan or crossover route.
There’s a reason the old Challenger significantly outsold both the Camaro and Mustang
The Camaro made me irrationally angry because GM achieved what they set out to do with the 6th Gen, it was just the wrong goal sales wise. When talking about it the development team would alway talk about how they tried to be competitive with the Corvette team on things, and to me this is missing the point entirely. The Camaro needed to be practical enough to be someone’s only car and the past 2 generations just weren’t. Too little cargo space, too little visibility, too cramped, all with the Camaro actually being a fairly large car. There is no business case because I’m not sure GM even fundamentally understands the problem. Years ago when pressed about GM not offering any sort of compact sports car or hot hatch, a GM executive responded by simply saying to buy a Camaro.
That last sentence pissed me off so much when I heard it. They tried to make the Camaro an all-arounder but it had no daily livability! The other one that gets me hot is that when they were designing the 6th gen, they only invited 5th gen Camaro owners to the focus groups!
They wanted to have it compete with the 4 series and the Mustang but invited no owners of those groups to try to make it something that would cause them to gain new buyers!
It’s like neither the executives or chief engineers ever looked at the parking lots and wondered why thier young “car guy” engineers were driving Focus RSs and Golf Rs
That’s exactly why it remained so compromised from a visibility perspective. They asked the focus group, which consisted solely of people already driving these bunkers on wheels, whether they wanted to see or keep the style. Obviously, the people who’ve gotten used to it don’t care about the poor visibility, and prefer the styling. Anyone who hates the view from the cockpit simply didn’t buy one so they weren’t consulted.
Yep and then GM sat dumbfounded when the 6th gen didn’t sell as well. The Camaro die-hards were going to buy one regardless!
You’ve made an excellent point. My first two daily drivers were Firebirds, and I didn’t own a sedan until I was well into my 30’s. The hatch on the third-gen made it practical enough for a single guy, and in a pinch I could cram three buddies into it for short trips.
When I was a kid, my Mom’s family truckster was a 1970 Mustang (with the 351 Cleveland!) and then a 1984 Z28. So it can be done.
Ohh Cleveland – good motor.
Throw the idea of a “Camaro” out the window. Stop trying to out-Mustang the Mustang. It’s not gonna happen. A 5 door liftback with a base turbo 4 or a spicy turbo V6, also available as a convertible, would be great. Somewhere between a BRZ and a Mustang. Don’t call it the Camaro so you won’t piss off the enthusiasts. They’ve killed the Camaro twice because people weren’t buying them, so maybe it’s time to play in a different segment.
So basically make a Stinger equivalent to go toe to toe with the new ICE Chargers? I’ve heard worse ideas, but it’s still a fairly narrow market.
The Charger is pretty big. I was thinking something more compact that wouldn’t need a V8. More of a focus on handling than outright speed, but still not slow with the turbo 6 (SS?). Essentially what the CT4 should’ve been (a liftback with a convertible model) but since it’s a Chevy it can be a bit rougher, less focused on luxury.
I think this misses the mark, because GM’s killer asset is the LT1 or whatever successor would come in a new Camaro. Arguably only Ford among all automakers can match it.
I agree, but they have trouble translating that into sales outside of the C8. The SS was an incredible car and they sold like…5. My solution is nuclear, but I’d love something different than just another flavor of Mustang. Unless the reboot absolutely knocks it out of the park I just don’t think there will be enough leftovers from the Mustang and the ICE Charger to keep it afloat, and this same article will appear again in 6-8 years.
I think there’s an opportunity here with the Mustang going upmarket price-wise and weird with its styling, and the Charger losing the V8 to really strike with an affordable V8 car that’s 10% less aggressive and 10% more livable than the 6th gen.
GM has better economies of scale with their V8 engines than anyone on earth; not only do they sell more V8 trucks than anyone else, but they also have the Corvette, Suburban, etc. They can also share the platform with Cadillac sedans in a way Ford and Dodge can’t. They should be able to undercut the others pretty significantly on pricing if they wanted.
But, by delaying/cancelling/whatever happened here, they may have fumbled it.
This may be the sweet spot, I had a Mustang convertible (’22) as a rental a few months ago and it honestly felt huge, as big as my old MN12 T-Bird. 10-15% smaller (SN95 or so) would feel so much more light and nimble. The interior was a livable size at least but honestly, the ’00 New Edge I rented in California decades ago was a better daily. It had better trunk access and did not feel like a cave. It was open and airy. Sure it had an anemic 3.8.
Got it in one. And make the ‘base’ v8 version run the 5.3 (call it a 327 if you want!) instead of the 6.2 – 355 horses just like the truck, lean into cylinder deactivation for fuel the fuel economy, and no one would miss the 6 cylinder. That’s what the ‘LT1’ trim that they tried to make to compete on price with the Challenger R/T should have been, IMO.
Chevrolet should make a Camaro sedan, but call it the Nova. Just like Ford should make a Mustang sedan, but call it a Falcon. They should be sold alongside the ‘halo’ 2 door coupe counterparts, with very clear messaging through advertisement and styling, that the cars are closely related. That way the consumer that really *wants* a Camaro, but *needs* the practicality of a sedan or wagon (and can only afford to buy one car) knows that the Nova they buy shares the engineering, performance, and cred of the Camaro, just in a different form factor – and so does anyone who sees them driving it.
Offer the manual in the more-door configuration, and then ignore the take rate – it doesn’t matter very much whether people actually buy the manual, the key thing is that they *could* – that cool factor rubs off on the auto models.
This is supposed to be an actually affordable pony-car platform, so we can’t just throw expensive tech at it willy-nilly, but they still need to have a prayer of meeting fuel economy/GHG regs, so 48 volt micro-hybrid all the things. Literally every econo-box in Europe uses such a system so they can’t cost much at this point, and the fuel economy bang for the buck is hard to match.
“Chevrolet should make a Camaro sedan, but call it the
NovaMonte Carlo”“Just like Ford should make a Mustang sedan, but call it a
FalconThunderbird”There… fixed it.
Can’t we just call the sedan Camaro the Camero? I’ve seen it misspelled this so many times that it seems it’s the default.
The CamEro would be the electric version.
Then we should have a pickup truck version called the Caballero.
They might even sell three caballeros!
Well, no. The Monte Carlo was never based on the Camaro chassis, and it’s always been a larger 2 door luxury coupe. The Thunderbird was only on the same chassis as the Mustang from 80-89.
I’m thinking in terms of names they SHOULD revive.
Well, considering the 1st and 2nd Gen Camaro & Firebird were based on the GM RWD X Car platform (Chevy II/Nova/Concours, Ventura/Phoenix, Omega, Apollo/Skylark)….
The major problem with these late-stage Pony cars is that the originals were based on inexpensive small sedans – so they were intrinsically practical, reasonably priced due to the shared platforms, and easy to maintain.
Now that there are no inexpensive small sedans to limit the designers and spread the development and production costs – there’s no limit to what they can do – so we wind up with big, expensive and impractical pony cars.
The Fox bodies may have been the last gasp at this.
Exactly – Because Alpha is shared with Cadillac – and D2C was loosely based on (ie: a decontented version of) DEW98, which was shared with Lincoln and Jaguar.
The 48 volt systems are a cheat code and should be on everything at this point. It’s a free 2-3 more MPG in the city and less emissions with virtually 0 compromises.
I’d rather they retire the Camaro until people like coupes again than ruin it for good.
I think people still like coupes, it’s just that because people keep cars for longer than they did 20, 30, 60 years ago, less people buy them.
When you only planned on having a car for ~3 years, a coupe made sense because there was a window of time where it fit your needs and wants before you had kids. Now, that window of time is gone because loads of people keep cars for longer and longer, therefore it needs to fit your needs/wants for that longer and longer window. So coupes get the axe.
Plus, modern CUVs are faster and better handling than loads of coupes from the ’60s and even into the ’90s.
They just need to make it affordable. That was always the success of muscle cars. A $50K Camaro is a non-starter when a $40K Model 3 is faster. Do they not make enough V8s for the base model V8 Camaro to come in under $40K? And as others have said, make it functional. If not, then, yeah, don’t build it.
It was affordable, the 2023 Camaro LT1 had a base msrp of $36,659, but they never advertised them beyond NASCAR, then in 2024 for the production wind down they jacked the prices up across the board.
Thanks! I couldn’t find how much it cost and just made my proclamation that it should be cheap. Make it V8 only to bring that down even further. Make it a usable size and shape.
It also doesn’t help that used examples of that trim are STILL selling for $36K. The used car market is still so stupid.
As long as you weren’t planning on going to the track the LT1 was one of the best pound for pound sports car buys on the market and was true to the classic muscle car formula. It was a cheap, pretty sketchy, barebones rental car spec coupe that happened to have a beast of an engine.
I nearly bought a Camaro years ago and was between the painfully underrated V6 and an LT1. Unfortunately I just couldn’t make the compromises they required work as a daily.
Thanks for the reminder of the name of that trim. I went on Autotrader and did a nationwide search to see how many are out there – two. How they managed a swing-and-miss on a no-brainer formula (V8, but affordable!) is beyond my ken.
That’s not to say I don’t know why it didn’t sell – it was because they didn’t make it affordable enough to undercut their V8 competition (Challenger R/T), so people that just wanted a cool looking coupe that made awesome V8 noises just went to their friendly Dodge dealership. Plus, that car was more comfortable and usable…
No one is cross shopping a Model 3 and a Camaro. The Venn Diagram of the people they appeal to might as well be separate circles other than a small handful of folks whose primary goal is the Own The Libs. They also offered a sub 40k V8 6th gen. It was called the LT1 and you could get a barebones one in the mid 30s.
While the 6th gen Camaro is an excellent track car we don’t drive stat sheets. Someone considering a Camaro wants a specific experience that EVs still can’t really replicate without assorted fakery.
I’m not sure about this.
There are some people out there who just say “what’s the fastest car I can get for $40K” and start their shopping list there.
I know this, because when I was younger and single, that was basically how I started my car searching.
Perhaps you’re right! I didn’t account for that segment, which apparently has had at least one member 🙂
I like to think I’m more discerning now, but even if so, it isn’t by much.
I’m with V10. The number of discerning enthusiasts that care about the track experience a Camaro could offer is dwindling, and if that’s what they’re going to shoot for, they shouldn’t be building the car because it will lose money. Those people have more money than Camaro money and they buy Porsche’s.
The number of newer enthusiasts that simply care about how quick something is, is growing. It’s just drag racing at the end of the day. Drag racing (outright acceleration) has always been popular. Driving experience wants are dying. Acceleration and speed is not.
Here’s my plan: make one that you can see out of that has a reasonably sized trunk opening
But then the police can see in, as well. You can’t be expected to hide the weed, the Four Loko, AND the gun. There isn’t enough storage.
Also, make it not look like a Chevy, as they currently seem to be in an arms race with Toyota and Kia for who can build the most overstyled car.
GM execs: You Madman!
No, no one wants a Camaro sedan.
How about a Camaro sedan, but have it named ‘Monte Carlo’?
Because the Monte Carlo was never a sedan?
Well the Charger wasn’t a sedan originally either.
Also no. They have Chevelle, Nova, Malibu, Impala, or Caprice, all sedan names they could use
Eazy E literally name drops the Impala in one of the biggest rap songs of the 90s. All of the real ones recognize that nameplate.
How about Biscayne? Or Delray?
I thought we already had the next-gen camaro.
They sell it as the blazer.
The gas Blazer is dead after this year
When the Cadillac sedans are already sold, what is the appeal of a Camaro sedan? In an already diminishing market?
They just need to make it better looking and introduce a budget convertible model to undercut the Mustang in rental fleets.
Young people like a small “underpowered” coupe so make a mid-sized sedan with an optional high-HP V8?
I think this is off-base. The Charger came back as a sedan because that’s what was still big at the time. Using this example, the Camaro will be brought back as a compact crossover.
Well, it can compete with the Mach-E, at least.
They already have the blazer and equinox EVs.
Yeah, but those are minivans with hinged doors. A compact RWD CUV with LS power isn’t something that I would want, but I see a lot of people who would.
Sell the next gen as a salt-flats ready streamliner. F-Body Camaros have been modified for a Cd value around 0.20 for runs at Bonneville and remained instantly recognizable for what they were. The next Camaro should be so slippery that the base level 275-horsepower 4-cylinder is enough to hit 200 mph. Just make sure the car has the tall gearing to match.
This is how you get it to meet CAFE requirements. Highway mpg would be very Prius-like.