Chevrolet Camaro 1971 News

This was my first hands-on exposure to the American coupe that has been created from the bones of the VE Commodore and I was hopeful of something special. The car is great, and is now one of my favourites as a voter in the World Car of the Year contest, but it was the in the Camaro which is now truly memorable. It came at the hands of Rob Trubiani, who is one of the most talented wheelmen I have met. And I mean Brock-type talent. I had never heard of Trubiani and he has never raced, but he has an incredible gift for speed with poise and precision. Ok, so he knows the Camaro and Holden's ride-and-handling track as well as anyone, but he still conducted the car around the course at incredible pace with zero fuss - even when he was totally sideways. It turns out he is the only Holden driver who is qualified to test at the Nurburgring in Germany, which is one of the tracks where he helped to hone the Camaro. And he is talented engineer as well. "I guess I'm an engineer who is able to drive fast. But I'm an engineer first," Trubiani says modestly as we head into our third lap. It's thanks to Holden people like Trubiani, and talented young designer Peter Hughes who was also part of the Camaro experience, that the company does so well. It is packed with incredible skills. And I still cannot fathom how Trubiani has such a light touch at Lang Lang while driving with the klumpy steel-cap boots which are compulsory in his job. "I guess I've just adjusted. They're not my first choice, but they get the job done," he laughs. Follow Paul Gover on Twitter!

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.

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.

After more than a year of hints and rumours, the right-hand drive reality of the Camaro project has finally been revealed. This pair of right-hand drive Camaro coupes was caught at Melbourne airport by a carsGuide reader, though it is unclear if they were heading out to the US or returning to their home in Australia. GM Holden has been responsible for design and development of the Camaro, which is built up from the same rear-wheel drive mechanical package used for the VE Commodore. It has created dozens of test “mules” which spend most of their time at Holden's Lang Lang proving ground on the road from Melbourne to Phillip Island, though some have been caught doing real-world testing on roads around the Victorian capital. The test cars could have been heading to the US, as Chevrolet is running its own test program at a number of sites including GM's giant proving ground at Milford near Detroit. But those have always been coupes. And left-hand drive. This time, for the first time, the steering is obviously on the right and this firms the betting on a Camaro for Australia following the American introduction next year. The timing is likely to be in the first half of 2010. No-one at GM Holden has confirmed an official plan, with company spokesman John Lindsay again refusing any comment this week. But Brett Vivian, the vehicle line director for the Camaro, is on the record on the possibility for a right-drive version. “We've engineered the car to be right-hand drive and we can turn it on if we need to,” Vivian said in July. The right-drive test cars are identical to the left-hand drive cars which have been seen on the road near Melbourne, and also spotted up-close by carsGuide team members inside Lang Lang. But they still have the military-style body camouflage which has been applied to test cars from the start, despite an edict from GM's global product boss Bob Lutz that it should be stripped away. The undisguised Camaro was revealed several months ago in an official picture taken on the high-speed bowl at Lang Lang. But that was a left-drive car and not the right-side steering model caught at the airport, so perhaps GM Holden is still hoping to keep details of the local program secret until closer to an on-sale date.  

Holden's Australian headquarters played host this week to the official unveiling of the revived Chevrolet Camaro as part of the classic badge's global reveal. Despite its American heritage, Aussie know-how was called on to develop the two-door coupe. The new Camaro was first shown as a concept at the Detroit show in January, 2006, after GM had axed the badge four years earlier. Its rolling chassis was developed in Australia from what was once called the Zeta platform (now the global rear-wheel-drive platform) — the same architecture as the VE Commodore. But although the car has plenty of Commodore DNA, there is still no official word on whether Australians will get to drive it. Holden is still waiting on GM to make a decision about making the car in right-hand-drive. “If there is confirmation of right-hand-drive, we'd be interested,” says Holden's John Lindsay. Holden designers and engineers have spent the past two-and-a-half years working on the project — along with the US design and engineering teams — as part of the push by General Motors to streamline its business. “It's different,” says Peter Hughes, who is the design manager on the project. “GM has gone global in the past few years and Holden Design has been part of that.” Global warming hasn't been forgotten either. The 6.2-litre V8 engine uses the latest cylinder deactivation technology to save fuel by turning the engine into a fuel sipping four-cylinder. And the new Camaro will also be available with a 3.6-litre V6 engine in the US. However, it is obvious that while much of the original appeal of the show car has been retained, the production model has lost a great deal of the jewellery that adorned that car when we first drove it at a US speedway in 2007. “Instructions were to interpret the Camaro as a contemporary design ... and to create the meanest street dog in town,” Micah Jones, lead interior designer on the show car project, said at the time. “In the interior there are definite cues from the classic '69 Camaro — especially in the gauges and dials, a reinterpretation of what was unique in that car.” One of the visual delights of the concept was the pure, clean engine bay with nothing other than a brake booster and oil and water filler caps left to drag the eye away from the shining engine. The wires and odds and ends that usually give an engine bay its confused look were tucked away under plastic covers. The milled and polished aluminium engine cover has made way for a more mainstream and cost-effective treatment — a pity, along with the integrated strut tower brace. The side mirrors (slim to the point of being useless) and the bonnet-lip air intake are gone. The long hood, short deck and wide stance of the concept remain and it appears rumblings at GM that the roofline needed to be lifted to allow more headroom have been swept aside. The deep set anodised main gauges with matching centre cluster have survived. And the retro styling of the bucket seats, keeps the '60s theme rolling. Reigning V8 Supercar Champion Garth Tander was on hand at the Australian launch — and even brought along his own 1969 5.7-litre, four-speed manual, V8 Camaro SS muscle car for a nice comparison.  

To be certain, this show concept was not the Camaro to make anything but a styling impression. The real drivetrain development for the Chevy star is nearing completion stuffed under a range of Commodore bodies tooling around Australian roads. "There are a few of them out there," GM Holden boss Denny Mooney says when asked at the Detroit motor show about the development program. "It's coming on well." Developed from what was once called the Zeta platform (now the global rear-wheel-drive platform) — the same architecture that underpins the VE Commodore — the Camaro will come to market with the most advanced RWD chassis in the GM world. Yet the Concept's dynamic credentials wouldn't get it a start in a soapbox derby. The rolling platform is a chopped VE chassis engineered for little more than keeping the body shell off the road and getting the thing mobile, this was all about style. Not due in showrooms, including those in Australia, until late 2008, the production Camaro Coupe will be true in style to the concept we were invited to experience at the Homestead Miami Speedway last week. "You have to forget about drawing any conclusions from the driving dynamics of this car — that's not its role at all," says Micah Jones, lead interior designer on the project, explains. "The suspension is pretty much screwed down flat, the gearshifts are like a truck and while it has been really well done as a showcar it is still very fragile." Hopefully, what won't change is the guttural, animal growl the 6.0-litre LS2 and its gaping twin exhaust tips leave in its wake, even with the 3000rpm limit imposed by the showcar's minder. "The instructions given to the design team were to interpret the Camaro as a contemporary design ... and to create the meanest street dog in town," Jones says. "When you look at it from the front there is a sort of growling Doberman there. "In the interior there are definite cues from the classic '69 Camaro — especially in the gauges and dials, which are a reinterpretation of what was unique in that car." One of the visual delights of the concept is the pure, clean engine bay with nothing other than a brake booster and oil and water filler caps left to drag the eye away from the shining engine. The wires and odds and ends that usually give an engine bay its confused look are tucked away under plastic covers on either side of the bay. The milled and polished aluminium engine cover will make way for a more cost efficient plastic version — and that's a pity — as will the carbon-fibre insert on the bonnet interior. With any luck the similarly milled and beautifully integrated strut tower brace will survive through to production. Of the exterior features only the side mirrors, slim to the point of making them useless, and huge show rims will face modification before the showroom sign-off. The long hood, short deck and wide stance of the concept scream performance car. There have been internal rumblings at GM that the roofline needs to be lifted to allow more headroom, but the proportions as they stand are so pure that any serious moves to alter them would result in designers throwing themselves on their own pencils in protest. Likewise, the interior is unlikely to change substantially — at least in style. The deep set anodised main gauges with matching centre cluster are key to the homage being paid to the cars of the late '60s and may survive the final cost analysis. The same applies to the prominent metal-ball gear lever and mountings which, along with the small leather performance steering wheel and retro-styled bucket seats, keep the '60s theme rolling. What is likely to change is the quality of some of the materials — for while the Camaro will not be a cheap model, it is mainstream and needs to be affordable. That it will be desirable is a given, even if it is so ... American.