Chevrolet Camaro 1978 News

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It grabbed the spotlight this morning and will continue to make the pace until Audi unveils its all-new A5 coupe on Tuesday, just on the strength of the its retro-futuristic styling.But the Camaro is also an Australian car.It is being engineered for showrooms at GM Holden and it has been confirmed for local sales soon after its debut in the United States in 2009. It is almost certain to be followed onto the road by the Camaro convertible previewed at the Detroit Motor Show in January.The Camaro's two-door body is draped over the mechanical package used for the VE Commodore, a combination which will make life more than tough for the latest Ford Mustang in the 'states.GM Holden says it is using the Melbourne show appearance to test the car's reception in Australia."We want to see whether Australian buyers would want a Chevrolet Camaro in local dealerships. This motor show is an excellent opportunity to put that appetite to the test," says Tony Stolfo, head of Holden design.He also talked openly about the work going on in Australia for the Camaro project, and the pressure from America to fast-track the project."They cannot get it soon enough," says Stolfo."Chevrole Camaro's engineering work is happening right here, right now, at Fishermans Bend.The concept car is powered by a Chevrolet LS2 V8 producing 298 kiloWatts of power, fed to the independent rear suspension through a six-speed manual gearbox. It rolls on 21-inch front alloy wheels with 22-inchers in the rear.

The car is the Chevrolet Camaro and, even though it is still to be confirmed by GM Holden, the 2006 American concept should be at the Melbourne Motor Show next month.The Camaro coupe and convertible will eventually be sold in Australia, according to GM's global product chief Bob Lutz, so an early local visit makes sense for GM Holden.The Commodore export deal was confirmed last week in an announcement by GM at the Chicago Motor Show and GM Holden at Fishermans Bend.The final price and export volume have still not been revealed — though $US25,000 and 40,000 look good — but the VE will definitely be sold as the Pontiac G8 in the US and Canada with only minimal body changes from the SS Commodore on the roads in Australia.The VE Holden Ute will probably follow.Holden chairman Denny Mooney says it and other Holdens are being considered for export to the US.The Ute would not have to be sold in the US as a Pontiac just because the sedan carries that badge, and there has been talk in America that it might become an El Camino, one of the classic badges in Chevrolet history."It could be a GMC truck or it could be a Chevrolet El Camino," Mooney says.GM Holden shipped a record 31,000 Commodores and Statesmans — badged as Chevrolet Lumina and Chevrolet Caprice — to the Middle East, Korea and China last year.Mooney says the Pontiac deal is potentially bigger and will easily top the 18,000 Monaros that were shipped to the US.The Monaro's numbers were lower than hoped, but the car had forged a link to the US and the Commodore would have a much better chance of succeeding at all levels."The two-door coupe market in the US is small. The sedan market we're exporting this car into is 20 times bigger," Mooney says.The Monaro, sold as the Pontiac GTO, was a success for GM and Pontiac, he says, because its many accolades have boosted the company's image.The VE deal could lift production at Holden's Elizabeth factory and help to top up falling demand for big sixes in Australia.

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.

But GM Holden wins either way.A Chevrolet Camaro convertible was unveiled on the eve of this year's running of America's biggest motor show and is battling the Holden EFIJY for attention as visitors to the chilly motown event clamour for the two concept cars to be put into full-scale production.Both have tapped a rich vein of muscle car nostalgia and Holden is a common denominator.The design staff at Fishermans Bend created the EFIJY with inspiration from the original 48-215 Holden and are also responsible for readying the Camaro, which was first seen a year ago as a concept coupe in Detroit, for production.Prototypes of the Camaro coupe are already on the road around Melbourne as the car is readied for American sales in late 2008. The development project is a major export income stream for GM Holden, which is also hoping to confirm an American sales plan for the VE Commodore - which would be badged as a Pontiac - within the next three months."It's an open secret that we are doing the production work on the Camaro coupe," GM Holden's design director, Tony Stolfo, said yesterday.The convertible is the second step in a plan to use the Camaro as a rallying point for GM, which is deeply in the red and looking for good news to bring customers back to showrooms and prevent further leakage to Toyota, the global number two.It looks great and tugs at the heart strings of the baby boomers who pushed for production of the Camaro coupe, as well as pushing American sales of everything from the latest Ford Mustang to the Chrysler Viper, Prowler and PT Cruiser.There is no plan yet to put the topless Camaro into production, although could easily change if there is enough support at the Detroit Show. "If this Camaro convertible doesn't make your heart beat faster you should see either your optometrist or your cardiologist, because you have a problem," the general manager of Chevrolet, Ed Peper, said.There is absolutely no production plan for the EFIJY, which has come to America as one of the banner cars at a GM style event, even though Stolfo admits it uses enough regular GM components that it could be readied for the road.But Australians are likely to get a look at the Camaro this year, as GM is about to make a decision on right-hand production for the coupe.If the born-again sixties star is given a go-ahead for countries including Britain and Australia, GM sources in Detroit hint that a car could undertake a global tour including the Melbourne International Motor Show in the first week of March.