The Camaro Returns
During a time of automotive crisis, can the sassy Chevy be the comeback kid?
By David Menzies
The Chevrolet Camaro, first rolled off an assembly line in 1966 as an answer to Ford’s Mustang, was axed in 2002 and is just now experiencing a phoenix-like resurrection, including a star turn in this summer’s movie hit Transformers 2. Will the Camaro emerge as General Motors’ comeback kid of the decade? Or will the sports coupe become yet another expensive flash-in-the-pan, ultimately destined for the scrap heap of obsolescence as the wrong car at the wrong time?
Time will tell. Given General Motors’ plunge into bailouts and bankruptcy reorganization, it’s an important question. Profits, jobs and even the American economy have a stake in the outcome.
Still, my heart skips a beat whenever I hear someone say “Camaro.”
Full disclosure: Upon snagging my driver’s license in 1980, I fell under the spell of this sassy Chevy. I was, after all, a teenage male – two key demographic attributes for desiring a V8 sport coupe. Back in the days of leg warmers and the Village People, the Camaro was a “boss” car.
Obtaining a Camaro
Mind you, obtaining a Camaro did not come easily. Since I was still in high school, buying a new ’81 model off the lot was out of the question. (I kid you not; back then, parents didn’t purchase brand-new cars for their school-age kids.) Even obtaining the financial wherewithal to acquire a used Camaro was a challenge. Sufficient capital ($3,000) came by way of selling my cherished comic-book collection. But it would surely be worth the price: The key to snagging a date with a cheerleader, after all, was possession of a smokin’ sports car.
And did my ’74 Camaro ever smoke – especially when the radiator overheated. The sheer folly of my “investment” hit home when my ride failed to attract feminine attention. Guys liked my Camaro, though. We would spend many a Friday and Saturday evening fruitlessly driving up and down our main drag, “cruising for chicks.” I’d rev the V8 engine, do a tire burnout and crank Trooper’s The Boys in the Bright White Sports Car to the max – even though mine was ebony.
The end of the road for my Camaro came on a fall afternoon in 1982. My alleged muscle car slammed into the rear of a Brady Bunch-esque station wagon. Camaros, I learned, have glass jaws. Wagons have buns of steel.
Fast-forward to the present, and the Camaro is back. And it’s about time, too – at least according to fan site
www.Camaro.com, which notes the Camaro has been “sadly missed by millions of American drivers.”
Pilgrimage to Oshawa
Recently, I made a pilgrimage to Oshawa, Ontario, where the new Camaro is being built. Like other Big Three towns, Oshawa has been hit hard by the economic downturn. Yet, there’s a sense of optimism now that more than 400 Camaros are rolling off the line every day. And what an assembly line: GM claims the Camaro plant uses one of the most technologically advanced production systems in the world.
The really good news: The 2010 version of the Camaro is a bases-loaded home run for The General. The neo-muscle car’s basic 6-cylinder, 3.6-liter engine churns out 304 horsepower – more power than many of the V8 Camaros of decades past. The manual V8 6.2-liter engine, meanwhile, generates a gulp-inducing 426 horsepower.
Stylistically, the new Camaro is a retro-themed masterpiece, and aggressive lines abound. The holding compound at the Oshawa plant looks as though a giant spilled an enormous jar of jelly beans. The brightly colored bodies of the Camaros glisten, ranging from Rally Yellow and Victory Red to the aptly named Inferno Orange.
Certainly, the price is right, with the base-model Camaro listing for $23,040. And in the department of having one’s cake and eating it, too, fuel economy for the 6-cylinder model is estimated at 29 miles per gallon. A decade or so ago, such a rating would’ve qualified the Camaro as a bona fide “economy car.”
There are a few sour notes, though. The Camaro’s dashboard is lackluster, and the interior is cramped. The back seat is sufficient only for passengers who haven’t graduated from kindergarten.
But the 2010 Camaro isn’t intended to be a minivan or SUV. Rather, it promises – and deftly delivers – stellar performance and handling.
Embracing the Camaro?
When the honeymoon phase ends, will consumers continue to embrace the Camaro – especially if oil prices spike? After all, as iconic as the Camaro was in its initial 35-year run, there was a perfectly valid reason that GM killed the car seven years ago: the bottom line. The best-ever sales year for the Camaro was 1979, when more than 280,000 were sold. By 2001, Camaro sales had plunged to just over 42,000 units.
As several automakers rollout innovative products ranging from hybrids and micro-cars to alternative-fuel vehicles, a cynic might suggest the Camaro is out of sync with the times. Yet, even when gas prices are high, cars are far more than mere Point-A-to-Point-B conveyances for most people. Cars are also about sex appeal and fun and image. In this department, the all-new yet old-school Camaro truly excels.
Viva Camaro!
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David Menzies writes for Boomer Life from Toronto
