The red “guestimate” pictures front end looks like their trying to go with the mustang thought of going retro with still keeping some things 60’s like the headlights and grills. i think the red sketch looks the best.
Absolutely not, for a number of reasons
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Mustang IS Ford. The sell hundreds of thousands of them, and not so long ago, so did Camaro. In that regard, so did Firebird at certain points.
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You need an image car that gets buyers. Corvette is incredible, but what young buyer is getting them. Putting a kid into a camaro first, leads to buying plenty of trailblazers and silverados down the line.
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If your car company doesnt have a soul, why bother. We dont need any more appliances, those are all getting better year after year. What we need is a CAR.
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It has been the third most recogized car name (to mustang and corvette), been around for almost 40 years, and its competitor still sells 200k units a year, yet you have the engine transmission and style and dont built it? That would be a bad idea.
I think that one was done by KrisH if I remember correctly, popular hotrodding had him do those. Also supposed to be on the right track.
if u guys want to know anything about 5th gen camaros or anything of that sort ask BaD AZz Z/28
he constantly soing research on this subject and is anticipating the show of a real concept , hpefully he gets what he wants at the detroit auto show
Personally im not sure if they should go retro or try somthing new, but for teh pics above i kinda like the way tehy are going with them
as for the SS (black car above) i like the rear and side profile but the front that jeeves posted id just not to likeable
add in the fact the GTO is getting axed soon, then GM will not have any car in that market segment.
<— Already planning on going to Detriot Auto Show this year.
As for the concept, the SS was released I believe 3 years ago. I remember seeing it at the Toronto Auto Show. I have pics on my website somewhere.
I think GM should go with the retro look. Mimicking what Ford did with the Mustang, I think Chevy should do the same with the 69 Camaro to a 07/08 Camaro. I think this would help them in the sales getting back the guys that used to own an older Camaro trying to get nostalgic and also making a cool enough of a design to get the new group of fans of the car. But the car has to keep a different design from what the Corvette has.
Chevy has been lacking in design where Ford and Mopar have been succeeding lately. I think this would be one of the boosts needed to get them back in the game. It just seems like they prolong the concept to production phase so much that a new model doesn’t have the lustre that it did when it was announced as a concept.
I can’t believe in 97 20k more GMs were sold…
Here… I just made this real quick. Anything to get away from homework for 2 minutes.
lol… looks like I took it one step further…
and to think i wasted at least 30 seconds formatting the text you had posted…
Yep…obviously a slow start to the 60s with mustang having a 3 year jump, but it came back to win the last two years of the 60s, won 8 of 12 years of the 2nd gen, won 8 of 11 years of the 3rd gen, but was given up on and only won 2 of 10 in the 4th gen.
That is ironically when the car was at its biggest mechanical advantage over the mustang, but it lacked some practicalty and most importantly, support. They stopped pushing to sell it, they stopped advertising it, they cut its budget, and they wouldnt refresh it. It was alone in a factory that needed much higher sales to be worthwhile, but it was legally locked into staying there. Without a chassis in place for the new crash standards, 2002 was the breaking point.
Tell me that an automaker wouldnt want to put some time into a car that consistantly sold over 100k (averaging more than that each year for its last 20), and for a historical total had an average of over 200k per year, all built with existing parts and pieces so that you get a nice little cash cow, which happens to be a halo car too. Just have to package it right.
Good work up there Jack :tup:
Also 4th gens were rediculously priced.
I like the red one, looks sharp.
Car companies do not need image cars to sell cars well. Car companies need good cars to sell cars. Sorry, if a car company has two nice looking, “sporty” cars they do make up for a line of boring cars with no emphasis on driving. I drive a Malibu and think, “wow did they care about anything?” I drive an Altima and I say wow, this really is from the people that make the Z. And this goes down to even the cheapest Altimas. There’s a reason that Nissan has made great gains in the past ten years, and introducing a new Z was not the ticket. It helps, but it isn’t key. Look at Mazda. “Fun” sells.
Do you really think a Mustang owner that loves their Mustang, but needs more room is going to go to the Ford showroom and buy a Five Hundred? Probably not. Now I don’t know if Camaro drivers raced to buy Celebrities. Maybe they went for the sport-luxury Oldsmobile alternative…
The Fusion may be something for Ford. I’m certainly hoping. They need it, whether or not you think that the Mustang alone can keep Ford’s car lineup in high demand.
Another fine example: do you know how much fun it is to drive a Focus fast? I mean, it’s just that great of a car to drive. The grocery store variety Focus is slow as anything, but it’s just FUN to drive. The car spoke for itself, and wasn’t it one of the best selling cars in America for a few years after introduction?
The Cobalt, well the regular Cobalt, is not fun to drive. They sell…okay…but nothing comparable to when the Focus was introduced. Why? I would guess it is because the Cobalt still feels like an early 90s car, and the Focus feels connected, solid. The steering is quick and weighted, but has a ton of feel for a FWD car. It rides great, but it doesn’t wallow. It corners flat for a stock car. It goes where you point it, without any of that twist beam jitter at the limit.
Fun sells. When the Camaro was seeing its final days, the only ones that were fun were the LS1’s. A new V6 mustang is fun to drive, and might I add they are relatively quick.
If they want to sell the Camaro like the Mustang, they need to give us something fun. It doesn’t have to be retro, it just has to be new thinking. The first car looks great, the second one looks a bit much. Retro can be tasteful–the 300, the 350Z, the new Mustang. They need a better lineup though. These discount cars are not healthy for the company.
Discount cars arent good, thats why there has been such a change away from them and positive improvements across the board. But a celebrity for sale? Focus great to drive? V6 mustang fun to drive? Come on…
People buy cars because of what benefits they get for a price, and what they think looks good. Performance, unfortunately, isnt the main category, or the camaro would have dominated the 90s instead of barely surviving it. There wasnt a better, faster, cheaper more available car than a mid 90s base Z28, and its way more fun to drive than the focus grocery getter you mention, but that doesnt mean it is going to sell. And a 4th gen v6 would romp a v6 stang, and hang with most other 4 and 6 cyl stock cars i nthe market too, if that matters. You need to make it appeal to average people, you need to market it, you need to keep the price right and get them in the seats.
The rest of GMs products are handling themselves in comparison, they have made great strides. Would I like to see more improvement, sure, what company doesnt. But you cant mention a chevy celebrity, thats like pulling most 80s cars from any company up. What a camaro can do is get your name out in the performance world, get young buyers buying GM and staying there, and while at the dealership, mom might as well get a equinox, dad a silverado (to tow his camaro to the track), and sis a cobalt. Otherwise you are just handing away marketshare and image.
See the problem you face, is that you are coming from a standpoint of a “tuner/racer/builder/enthusiast”.
97.6% of america’s general population (corey), would think a focus is fun to drive, and a mustang is fast.
A car company can’t just have models that appeal to only enthusiasts. That is why they have the corvette, gto, gt40, saleen, 350z, nsx,… etc. etc.
every other car, including focuses, and cobalts…just need to appeal to an ordinary driver…especially families, and college students.
You know I was going to reply with something worthwhile for you to read, but since you hardly read into my previous reply I don’t think I’m going to bother wasting your time for another cursory glance. I hope this is short enough for you to get all of what I typed.
Gosh I sound like an asshole, but don’t expect somebody to intelligently argue if you’re not even going to pay attention to what they are saying.
I felt the same way reading your post. I had just said performance alone wont make sales, cars cant be just appliances, and you need to market it to multiple types of people. Id be very suprised if the majority of the cars you mentioned were purchased for any level of performance or fun, they were made sold and bought to serve a purpose. Any new fbody can sell well as the old ones and the new mustangs do, so long as they provide that practically of a normal car along with the increasingly rare ability to be fun to drive. We need the v6s to sell well to survive, thats how its going to be, and GM knows that now. I just hope it doesnt make the car too vanilla, because we dont need just another ‘sporty’ commuter car, when it has the ability to be so much better.
I’m fairly certain that people drove a Focus before they bought it, and found it slightly different than the other cars in the market. 
Fun is relative. Taking the raw power of a small block and blasting through three gears is fun. You cannot convince me a focus is fun to drive. “muscle” cars were marketed to the 16-30 yr old male. When the price reached the point of making it close to a $30K vehicle the price didn’t equal the marketing. The RESULT is the the yonger generation migrated to the cheaper car, hence the TUNER generation. The mustang has done a good thing by introducing a moderatly priced semi economy V8. But, any manufacturer knows that at this point the baby boomers are comming to the point where they have expendable income, and almost all manufactures are trying to capatilize on that. GM needs to do the same thing that ford and most notable Chrysler has done (Can you say Hemi). Come out with something that exemplifies their heritage and is marketed towards a generation that will buy it.
see, these are the kind of threads I expect from nyspeed. :tup:
jack, nice graph, ++ for the extra effort.
as much as I’d like to see a new camaro, GM just axed plans for their zeta platform only a few months back. however, they are (at last report) still pressing on with the GTO. If there’s a new GTO, there can be a new camaro, using the same or a smaller version of the goat’s plat.
that said, what GM really needs to focus on are their bread-and-butter cars. one Z06 sells a lot of malibus and impalas, if, and it’s a big IF - they can build a credible, no-bullshit alternative to the camry.
I mean credible by build quality. features. road-going prowess. and NO-REBATE PRICING, which means that if the car is priced at $25k, it sells at or near $25k. the idea of massive rebates sells cars, but it cheapens the brand overall in consumers minds. nobody wants a shoebox impala when they could have had a stylish altima, or accord.
the engineers are there. the benchmarks are set. if the engineers, designers, and car-guys at the general were allowed to do what they could at that pricepoint (or damn near any), without the bean-counters, discount agents, or inside politics, they could build a world-beater. if you think I’m wrong, then “pass that shit.”
ford’s moving in the right direction, but they’ve got a dinosaur on their backs and that isn’t getting off without a fight. the fusion and european focus are tested, proven platforms, with good pricing and excellent, if a little bland styling.
zerodaze had a point when we were talking about delphi going under (there, I said it you bastard, fuck off 
:D) - domestic car companies HAVE to become leaner and more efficent to go the distance, especially with the chinese entering the world market. delphi is only an indicator of how bad it CAN get if no one else pays attention.
GM already has performance flagships in the vette, the goat, and to a lesser degree, the SS-R. their focus has to be shifted to the money-makers, or GM will be bought and dissected like junior high home-room anatomy.
Well, okay, people buy cars for different reasons. Of course you don’t think that a Focus is fun, but compare it to Sentras, Cavaliers, Corollas, etc and it really is more fun. Fast? No. A car doesn’t have to be fast to be considered fun.
Maybe I’m a bit extreme. Maybe what I mean to say is: it’s all in the package. Good price, well made and good looking will get people into the showroom. Having a fun car to drive will make them sign papers.
And the 300 is a damn good car. I’m sure they wouldn’t want to base the Camaro on Sigma (CTS) architecture, but that would be a great way. It certainly has potential.