General Motors today unveiled a Camaro concept car after discontinuing the muscle car just a few years back.
My first reaction -- as a Camaro enthusiast -- was WOW! The new concept actually takes the lead of Ford and incorporates an old-is-new design theme that mixes modern automotive design with distinct design elements from first-generation cars.
Here's a photo I gleaned from the Internet.
Read more at Chevy's performance website.
My second reaction, after thinking about this a while, is maybe this is too little, too late. As much as I love the first-gen Camaros, especially a '68 Super Sport with 427, seeing it now seems a little adulterated. It says, "We're Chevy and we couldn't come up with anything new that was cool, so we went back to this popular design."
And while I can be all high and mighty like that, I also admit that the recent generation Ford Mustangs that do the same thing I like even more than the originals. Of course, I have grudging admiration for the early Mustangs, though I'd take an early Camaro over a Mustang seven days a week. Not sure I'd do the same if buying new versions today. That's what I'll have to sort out.
Part of the reluctance is in the fact that Chevy seems to be so day-late and dollar-short. I mean Ford's, what, 5 years ahead of them on this whole retro-is-the-new-black thing?
I reserve the right to change my opinion on this once I see them actually produce this car. I've certainly seen Chevy shop around a concept car only for it to never see the light of day (a '57 Chevy Nomad clone comes to mind that I saw at an auto show.) Hell, Dodge seemed to get closer to that with its Magnum than Chevy ever got.
I also go off on a tangent to bemoan how horribly Chevy has tended to adulterate the Super Sport (SS) packaging in the last couple decades. The only exception to that was the Impala SS that was built on the Caprice-sized body, before the most-recent design. Everything else I've seen with SS badging has been underwhelming, most especially the SS pickup. Yuck. Ford's Lightning pickups made those look like Little Tykes cars.
Enough for now.
2 comments:
I always thought the SS badging on a recent Cavalier was a little, "huh?"
Same with GT. To me, to earn the SS or GT badge, that version should have no less than 30% more horsepower than the most powerful non GT/SS. My Grand Am has 170hp. The GT has 175hp. WTF?
I agree. In Chevy's heirarchy in the good old days, SS was set up as if it were one tier under the Z28 (it was after all, the Z27 option code). However, the Z28 didn't come with the ability to get the 427 as far as I've ever known. The engine was always Z28-specific. Hence, my attraction to the SS.
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