Posted on 02/17/2024 6:44:38 PM PST by Red Badger
Three pony cars made it out of the muscle car era to be part of our modern automotive world. These three are the Ford Mustang, Dodge Challenger, and Chevy Camaro. The Challenger is barely a pony car, but the Mustang and Camaro provide several engine options leading up to a V8 engine at the top of the line, defining the pony car market. While the Mustang lives on, the Chevy Camaro is dead and won’t likely return in true pony car form.
The top-level Chevy Camaro was awesome
At the top ZL1 trim, the last two generations of the Camaro delivered 650 horsepower and 650 lb-ft of torque through either a 6-speed manual or 10-speed automatic transmission. This power is excellent, but not the top figures in the class.
The Ford Shelby Mustang GT500 provides 760 horsepower and 625 lb-ft of torque, while the Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat Redeye delivers 797 horsepower and 707 lb-ft of torque. These two competitors best the Camaro for power, but don’t have the same bragging rights as the Camaro.
As far back as the 2018 model year, the Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE set a new track record at Nürburgring. This made many European automakers sit up and pay attention. This Camaro trim package includes incredible control features to handle the challenging corners of the legendary European track, with wider fenders and tires and the Magnetic Ride Control suspension package.
With a record time at the world’s most famous test track, why didn’t we see it in GM’s commercials?
GM could have pushed the affordable fun of the Camaro
Can you remember any commercials featuring the Camaro during the past fifteen years? You might remember one, possibly two, but the bow-tie brand had pushed its trucks, large SUVs, and, more recently, electric vehicles more than a classic pony car that represents what driving is all about.
The Chevy Camaro, especially in its classic form, is easily associated with the fun of driving down wide open roads. It would have been easy for Chevy to capitalize on the Nürburgring lap record. The brand could have presented this pony car in more advertising, doing what it does best: provide fun driving on any road.
Did we, as Americans, fail the Chevy Camaro?
Although the collective feelings about the sixth-generation design changes weren’t well received, the Camaro has been present at local Chevy dealers for many years. There it sat, in all its glory, waiting for any driver to scoop it up. The Camaro waited to deliver affordable fun, but all it could do wa wait. But did we gobble up this glorious car? Nope.
In fact, Camaro sales dipped to an incredible low of 21,893 in 2021 after reaching 88,249 only a decade before. According to Good Car Bad Car, Camaro sales increased in 2022 and 2023 compared to the 2021 low. Unfortunately, those figures weren’t enough to save this pony car from extinction.
There it was, waiting for any driver to take it for a test drive and then home to be the fun and active car that doubles as a great daily driver. Who failed the Chevy Camaro? Was it GM with a lack of advertising and a poor final design? Was it us, as Americans, who knew the car was at Chevy dealers but chose the Mustang or Challenger instead?
Did “we” fail??
No, it is a government motors product, that is a major strike against it.
“the Magnetic Ride Control suspension package. “
Being a UAW made product, I have to laugh at how long a gee-whiz electric suspenesion is going to last.
A resurrection of the 67-68 Camaro without electric BS might have gotten attention. The thing they came up with looked like a WWII German Pillbox on wheels.
“a tool for transportation first, a fashion statement a distant second.”
That is us. That’s why we buy used with 25k on the clock and keep them ten years.
Well, if the Ecoboost manages to make it a quarter mile.
But new vehicles that more or less drive themselves are wickedly quick.
But since I don’t race, the actual specs for things like 0 to 60 are far less important that the actual fun of driving the thing. I have heard a lot of people state that the fifth generation camaro was more fun to drive than the sixth gen.
However, the styling of the sixth generation doesn’t look all that different from the fifth so that makes it fourteen years old. There are still a ton of them on the road even with the flagging sales, so it is hardly surprising that people are declining to buy them.
Plus, a 300hp entry model is really too much car for the new drivers that the car should be most appealing to.
I couldn’t afford one either.
So I bought a 1970 VW beetle and hopped it up.
I used to race camaros on twisty roads for cases of beer.
I usually won.
One of my Marine Corps buds had one of those. The pic looks exactly like his..........................
Learned to drive stick in a Mustang. Good times.
I Learned to drive stick in a PINTO!.................
Do Pintos still exist???
I haven’t seen one in several decades.....................
It looks exactly like my buddies, too.
Wow
Love a Mach 1
69-70
All the way to 1973
In my youth, I had a Duster, a Mustang, and a Trans Am with a T-Top roof.
My current vehicle is a mini-van.
Good calculation. Have to admit that my dad ordered it, paid for it, and gave it to me as a wedding gift for my upcoming marriage.
Loved my ‘72
Quiet 'burbs, a guy two doors down had similar, 60's Camaro hot version owned since new, immaculate car, garaged but one night a few years ago he had to leave it out.
You guessed it, it was gone come morning.
I had a Camaro in the mid 1970s. I think it was a 1975. It was a piece of garbage. In 1980 I traded it in on a Toyota Celica, the best made car I’ve ever had.
Camaro - very good looking vehicle and a sporty drive. However when sitting in the drivers seat the front and rear windows seem to be a clear slit about 8 inches high - not good. Other blind spots abound. Driver needs to keep his head on a swivel and check every rear-facing mirror frequently.
IMHO this is another bone-headed decision by GM actuaries who don’t drive and use public transportation daily.
I have a 2002 Chevy Trailblazer. That production run was 2002-2009 and the vehicle improved greatly during that time. Chevy was selling every unit that came off the line but they killed it anyway. I never saw a reason that made good sense.
I came back to the US (after 18 months at Kadena) for a very short stint at Pete Field, CO and bought a 1972 Chevy Nova for $2700 and change. 5 months later I was sent off for 4 years of COTs. I had to leave it with my parents because I couldn’t ship it.
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