Quote:
Originally Posted by Revo1
Gen 5 only has TWO production years under its belt. It needs no refreshing as of yet. Not really diggin the headlamp covers. Functionality over form every time, but this car deserves to have both.
I response to your most recent query: There will (not hypothetically. I know gen 6 is on the way.) be no buyer's remorse for me. I bought this car loving every inch of it, just as it is. The interior has already been "refreshed" for 2012, and only reinforces how happy I am to have a 2010.
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It's always awesome to have the original and in my opinion, the guys who bought the 2010 are the true 5th Gen pioneers. Every model year after the 2010 has gain weight but, do have more options. As of right now, the 4th Gen Camaro is only 2 years old but in 2013 the car will be at its mid-gen point. If you compare the initial S197 sales to the 5th Gen's, you will see that the 3rd year is usually where sales start to decline. In 2005, the Mustang was a HUGE head turner and was the most popular automobile according to the sales numbers. Ford was literally selling 14,000 Mustangs a month for 3 years then sales eventually dropped. There were two factors that contributed to the sales slump, one was the economic event and the second was, everyone that wanted a Mustang had bought one. For example, sales in 2007 were 134,626, sales in 2008 were 91,251. I think GM did the right thing and held off on the convertible as long as they did, even though the convertible tops were an issue, it helped push sales back up on the Camaro.
What were looking at is two more loooong years in the pony car market and the ZL1 will affect the market just as much as the Boss 302 did. Sales will hit the numbers hard and fast and after two months the numbers will go back to pre-ZL1 levels (more Boss 302's inc). The ZL1 is just too much of a beast to offer it at a reasonable MSRP especially with the gas guzzler tax. GM can safely sell 5500 and consumers will not have to pay the tax. Everybody thinks the GT500 evaded the gas guzzler tax, but it did
NOT. The combined mpg were well below the 22.5 but, since Ford's production numbers were well below the amount that would initiate the tax (5500). The combination of the final mpg average and the total units sold, did not warrant the tax on the GT500. You can see this practiced with the CTS-V as well, the CTS-V's average mpg would actually tax the owner the maximum but since the total CTS-V's produced were only 9000 and some change, it set the CTS-V down an entire bracket, saving the consumer a lot of money. The ZL1 will not be sold in large numbers, the more they sell the more expensive it will be... and this is where the Z28 will succeed where the ZL1 did not. Vehicles like the Z28 can be sold in large quantities without penalties to the consumer or the manufacturer.
I agree that the Camaro needs both form and function, form sells way more than function because 99% of new car buyers can't tell you what the grille is for. I suspected that even the simplest of alterations to the 5th Gen would be met with frowns and I can almost guarantee that any future refresh will be the same. Trying to convince that 1% of new car buyers (Camaro enthusiast) when the changes go public that it is the best design GM had up their sleeves is going to be tough. I doubt that the original 5th Gen guys will regret their purchase, main reason being is that they will most likely hate the refresh... and that's ok... it just goes to show you how great the original was. The refresh needs to be functional, race ready, aggressive and be more aerodynamic drag coefficient. The 5th Gen needs to pull in some championships or at least some more podiums, this is where car enthusiast begin to respect the car and become more interested, when the Camaro begins to collect trophies. It sucks that nobody likes the headlights on the Camaro GT.R's, I think that a grille that was flush with the lights would really round out the front end. I will experiment some with a couple of the pics and see if I can get anything out of them...