The stunning Chevrolet Camaro concept, seen at Detroit earlier this year, will form the basis of a production version. The news comes as no great surprise, but with development ties to GM’s Holden division in Australia, a right-hand drive version should be a strong possibility.
The stunning Chevrolet Camaro concept, seen at Detroit earlier this year, will form the basis of a production version. The news comes as no great surprise, but with development ties to GM’s Holden division in Australia, a right-hand drive version should be a strong possibility.
The news that the Chevrolet Camaro concept shown at the Detroit Motor Show this year to rave reviews had received the production go-ahead was hardly news, especially following Dodge’s July announcement that its retro Challenger concept would also be produced.
But Bob Lutz’s March statement to the local media that a right-hand drive version would form part of the car’s development programme, could also indicate the possible opening of the modern muscle car floodgates in South Africa.
The archetypal American muscle car in for more than 30 years, the Camaro was shelved in 2002 with no word on whether a replacement would follow. But the Camaro concept, with its long, bulging bonnet, wide stance and prominent front grille showing strong hints of the 1969 model’s styling, inspired hope of a possible resurgence.
“The new Camaro will be almost identical to the concept,” design chief Ed Welburn said with the official production announcement. In production form, the muscle car will be offered with a range of manual and automatic transmissions, and V6 or V8 engines, to choose from.
The rear-wheel drive Camaro will share much of its underpinnings with the Holden Commodore from GM’s Australian subsidiary. The Zeta platform will also be shared with other GM models, including more Holdens (the Commodore is sold in South Africa as the Chev Lumina) and even some Saabs.
Handling duties fall to a four-wheel independent suspension, with MacPherson struts up front, a multi-link design in back and progressive-rate coil springs and gas-pressurised dampers. The car will be assembled in the US.
Lutz, GM’s vice president for global product development, said at the March announcement of the Cadillac brand’s imminent arrival in South Africa that the muscle car was likely to be built in right-hand drive form.
GM chairman Rick Wagoner expects that the company would be able to sell about 100 000 units of the muscle car when it goes on sale in 2009. We’d suggest that they could sell a lot more of these cars if they were available in right-hand drive mode, too.
And should DaimerChrysler decide to put the Dodge Challenger, which shares its rear-wheel drive LX platform with the Chrysler 300C, into production (and in right-hand drive form), the Camaro and Challenger could eventually become hot rivals on the local market!
