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Chevrolet Camaro will finally hit Sydney soil by the end of the year. Photo Gallery
The Chevrolet Camaro has missed the boat to Holden showrooms but will still soon arrive in Australia.
The VE Commodore-based retro coupe is coming as a private import and cars will be available in the back end of the year.
They won't be cheap, but the man who plans to land the first Camaro says he can deliver a right-hand drive car to match the original Chevrolet quality.
The job is done by Performax International, which has been operating for more than 20 years and specialises in importing and conversion on a wide range of popular American vehicles. Its biggest seller is the Chevrolet Silverado pickup but the Chevrolet Corvette and Ford Mustang are both popular.
The first Camaro — a top-line SS V8 — is already sitting on the docks in California and Nick Vandenberg of Performax cannot wait to get it to Australia and start the conversion and compliance work.
"The Camaro is an exciting car. It's a car that people know a lot about. It's a buzz car and people are talking about it," Vandenberg says.
"There is already quite an anticipation created by GM Holden doing the car. Since they have made their decision not to do right-hand drive we can at least supply a small number for Australia. We think we'll do a few cars a year and that will justify it."
Performax, which is based on the Sunshine Coast at Gympie in Queensland, has its conversion team on standby and Vandenberg says the work will be done with a state-of-the-art setup.
"We have invested hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars in this business," he says.
"We can do a 3D scan of a dashboard, then get it digitally onto a CAD drawing and reverse engineer it into a three-dimensional mould for our plastic injection moulding machine.
"We have a team of three guys to handle all of the compliancing. And one of those is the CAD man who does all the computer work.
"It's almost the quality of original equipment. And we are the only people in Australia with this equipment. It will be a seamless right-hand drive conversion with full Australian Design Rule compliance and a factory warranty."
Vandenberg is expecting the Camaro to generate a lot of interest but the biggest question cannot be answered yet. It's the price.
"The thing that determines the cost is the cost of the conversion. Until we get the car here we can only give an approximation.
"For a top-line car SS as a manual or auto it's going to be somewhere between $120,00 and $150,00. We sold a convertible Corvette the other day for about $200,000, so it will definitely be cheaper than a Corvette."
Vandenberg says the Silverado is a solid base for the business but it's muscle cars which generate the real following.
"We've done quite a lot of Corvette conversions. We do the Ford Mustang as well. We only got compliance for that early last year and we were flooded by people," he says.
The timing for the Camaro is still not set but the plan is locked and loaded, based on low-volume compliance.
"The car is currently sitting on the docks. It will take four or five weeks to get here, so it will be towards the end of the year before it's ready," Vandenberg says.
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