Chevrolet Camaro delayed for Australia

The Australian release of the Chevrolet Camaro has been delayed while General Motors fast-tracks more fuel –efficient vehicles, reports Joshua Dowling in Detroit.

The reborn muscle car was yet to be confirmed for sale Down Under but it was likely given that it has been designed and engineered by Holden in Australia.

The boss of GM’s global product development, Bob Lutz, told journalists at the Detroit motor show that the introductions of both the left-hand-drive convertible and right-hand-drive coupe have been pushed back by at least a year.

He said the company had been looking at “investments that we can defer a little bit, because they are non-essential or not critical to the short term survival of the company”.

“One of the things we pushed back was the [Camaro] convertible,” Lutz said. “It was initially going to be one year after the coupe, now it’s going to be two years after the coupe. And another thing we deferred was the right-hand-drive version.”

However, Lutz said a right-hand-drive version of the Camaro would eventuate.

“I’m confident it’ll happen, it will just be a little later,” he said.

Although the Camaro was developed in Australia, it will be built in Ontario Canada. However, production has been pushed back one month, presumably because of the car industry crisis.

Camaro production is due to commence on March 16.

General Motors already has 10,000 orders, which effectively means the car is sold out for at least the first three to four months.

In the US, the Camaro will have V6 and V8 power.

The boss of Holden, Mark Reuss, said the Camaro is not yet confirmed for Australia but there was a strong desire to introduce the car locally given the interest in muscle cars (performance vehicles from the 1960s and 70s).

“There is no Camaro announcement at this time,” he said.

The 2009 Detroit Motor Show