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In Motion
Anyone who's ever driven a '67 to 69 Camaro will feel right at home behind the wheel of the new one. It's pure American muscle. Fat-wrapped three spoke wheel? Present. Beefy, chrome handled shifter with round knob? Check. The tach and speedo are right in front of you, though they are nonfunctional. It takes all my self-control not to rev the engine to the moon and sidestep the clutch. ("Hey, you said I couldn't go over 40 mph; you didn't say there were instructions on how to get there!")
Of course, you don't want to stall a $5 million one-off, either, so I take care with the six-speed when pulling away. And you certainly don't want to drive like a wuss. Let's say we got to 40 pretty quick, and then the limiter kicked in. Foot's to the floor, but once you get to the big 4-0, that's all she wrote.
The under pinnings for the concept car are Cadillac CTS-V, which give the car an independent rear. With this foundation and the giant tires (21-inchers fore, 22s aft), it felt a lot more like a real vehicle than we expected. The steering was particularly nice. Let's hope they get it this good on the production model.
In a real automobile, the LS2 with active cylinder deactivation could probably knock down 30 mpg on the highway. With the next series of LS engines already on the drawing board, who knows how good it can get? Weight will probably be about 3,650 pounds with a driver, or similar to that of the 2005-up Mustang GT.
It's no secret that the General is working on a whole line of new rear-wheal-drive vehicles, and we don't just mean Cadillacs and Corvettes here. Rumor has it the next round of full-sized cars (like the Impala) will have north-south drive trains and differentials mounted out back, like God and nature intended.
In order to justify its existence, the Fifth-Gen Camaro would have to hit a sales bogey of around 100K units a year. In the old days, this would have been a no-brainer. But considering that Chevy hasn't sold as many as 50K Camaros in a year since 1998, it might be tricky. Ford sold around 158K 2005 Mustangs and was on target to top that by a significant amount in 2006. Over 50% of those went to women, who shunned the Fourth-Gen Camaro like the plague, and 70% of Mustang production was of the V-6 variety.
In order for the Camaro to be a sales success (and ensure its future), the Fifth-Gen will have to appeal to men and women alike, old and young, and most importantly, to those who aren't complete performance freaks. It must be a usable automobile, one that makes people feel youthful, but not juvenile.
Ford has laid out a pretty simple formula: Fun-to-drive V-6 base model, powerful V-8 mid-level model, followed by a fire-breathing 500-horse variant on top, all available in couple and convertible form. We can see how the Camaro could be a sporty runabout with a powerful V-6, a Mustang GT killer with a 400-horse LS3 and Shelby slayer with 500-plus horsepower LS8.
The Camaro concept has the basic ingredients. With a little tweaking here and there and the right marketing, it could be a runaway success. Let's hope, because if it goes on hiatus again (in GM speak), it'll probably be forever.
Jim Campisano
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