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Its been another crazy year in Camaroland with plenty of highs and lows. From GM's bailouts and bankruptcy to delivery of cars and meet and greets across both the United States and Canada. The Camaro5 membership has nearly quadrupled in size and are by far the largest 5th Gen Camaro community in the world.
Last January (2009) the pre-ordering process was in full swing and we were eagerly anticipating the start of regular production for the Camaro (and learned it would be delayed one more month). Over 10,000 had already been ordered and Camaro #0001 was bought by Rick Hendrick at Barret-Jackson. There were a trickle of spy shots, such as the first white car and a few convertibles. February brought the Daytona and Indy 500 pace cars. And March, well that was a huge milestone for the 5th Gen Camaro. On the 16th, the first production car rolled off the line (an event which was attended by a lucky few of our members). That very same day GM revealed the final performance specs of the car, including improved acceleration and fuel economy figures, and Nurburgring time. Later that week we got the first set of magazine reviews of the SS followed by some comparison reviews against the Mustang and Challenger. March was a good month.
April was full of anticipation. Some soon-to-be owners
knew their car was built and didn't have it. In some cases this continued for a
very long time. The very first member car was delivered on the 17th, one month after production started. April also included some very interesting pictures, the first shots of a cyber gray car and also the beginning of the mysterious weights on the brake calipers. May brought on the beginnings of the aftermarket, some track times, more owners, and the first instance of theft (Number3's wheels). In June most Camaro news seemed to take a back seat to GM's bankruptcy. However, amidst all that we did receive a few tidbits about the Z28, we learned of some monstrous Camaros getting built by tuners, and even though the Camaro outsold the Mustang for the first time in many many years, backlog had grown to 25,000 orders.
July brought forth little news, the Transformers edition was announced, and SS 6M owners were warned about possible output shaft problems. August had the introduction of the Body in White, the pizza giveaway by Camaro enthusiast "Papa" John Schnatter, and the first 2010 Camaro to run the 1/4 mile in under 11s, a cure for under-performing L99's, and the announcement of backup sensors becoming available. September saw a man as old as GM itself get a brand new Camaro and a couple more hints about the Z28 (from Al Oppenheiser, Chief Vehicle Engineer of the Camaro no less)
In October there were a couple major announcements. The first was Aqua Blue Metallic would be discontinued. The second was the first annual Camaro5 Fest (coming this April). Also in October was the first annual Buyers and Builders meet at the home of the Camaro in Oshawa. November was dominated by SEMA news, since the show was dominated by Camaros. There was also some important convertible info, including the first shots of production version testing in America and the announcement that it would be going into production in the 1st quarter (between Jan and Mar) of 2011. And in December we learned that the Camaro will once again pace the Indy 500 and that for 6 straight months the Camaro has outsold the Mustang and Challenger combined.