Camaro announcement?

Who has a clue on when we might hear any official word on Camaro......one way or the other...and why do you think that?

I think GM will just keep us out here in limbo until they decide there's a decent enough case to make a new one. They'd never say that they won't make one, just keep spouting the "not at this time" bs.

If we don't hear anything between the Detroit & New York shows, then we can probally write it off for another year.

Originally posted by guionM
If we don't hear anything between the Detroit & New York shows, then we can probally write it off for another year.

which is when btw?

The NAIAS here in Detroit is always in mid-January, if its not there it won't be anywhere for a while. :cry:

Ok if the "deal" with the CAW about building the camaro till 2005 is true, I'm betting they will have to wait till that contract is over with. If they announced a new one before then it could piss off the CAW and cause lawsuits.

Just my 2 cents though.

I thought we already decided that that was a tall tale..?

Anyway I think within one year from now, say by Dec. 2003 at the latest, they will be forced to give an official announcement about the F-body return or lack thereof. Just a guess,

GT

We need this contract thing proved or something.

Originally posted by stars1010
Ok if the "deal" with the CAW about building the camaro till 2005 is true, I'm betting they will have to wait till that contract is over with. If they announced a new one before then it could piss off the CAW and cause lawsuits.

Just my 2 cents though.

Would be a true point if the "CAW deal" legend wasn't :bs:, which it is.

Originally posted by guionM
Would be a true point if the "CAW deal" legend wasn't :bs:, which it is.

I tend to agree with you here. I think if there were any sensitivity on the issue....it would have been before St Therese closed.

So, if that is so...why all this secrecy?

Originally posted by Z284ever
I tend to agree with you here. I think if there were any sensitivity on the issue....it would have been before St Therese closed.

So, if that is so...why all this secrecy?

My off-the-wall unsubstantiated guess.... the next Camaro will be made outside the US.

Why?
1) To the best that I can find, all current GM plants have models assigned to them through 2007.
2) If someone let slip that the next Camaro would be made outside the US, unions would look at it as exporting jobs, whereas if the Camaro died & work started afterwards on a replacement, it could be viewed as bringing back a discontinued car and not taking an existing car and moving production elsewhere.
3) It seems that if Camaro does come back, it will be produced in small numbers compared to what even the gen4's production numbers were.
5) Holden expects to export 50,000 cars by 2008 (it comes to roughly 30,000 for the US, with 18,000 GTOs going to Pontiac). What's the remaining 12,000 going to be? If GM makes the next GTO here in the US, what will fill Holden's excess capacity?
6) And finally, Holden seems to be the only place on the planet in GM that knows how to make a cheap, low volume, RWD chassis profitably, without charging $30K+ for it.

But I admit my guess has problems as well:
1) GM can still build a plant & have it online by 2007 (the earliest Camaro's likely to return).
2) If GM can have a plant that turns out RWD sedans & GTOs, it's likely Camaro could also be made there as well.
3) Expanding the Holden brand into Canada & Mexico could also account for the increase of exports.
4) The sporty coupe market could explode again, making the case for a high volume Camaro.
5) GM can still buy RWD drivelines & suspension from Holden, design a body here, and still use a plant producing FWD cars to assemble them (TRUE FACT: Ford is remodeling the Chicago Taurus plant to produce the FWD 500 & Freestyle, but the plant is also being designed to assemble rear drive vehicles on the same line as well :eek:! Yes, something is up at Ford! :p ).

So basically, no one knows anything. :p

I do hope the next Camaro is built in North America.

Originally posted by guionM
My off-the-wall unsubstantiated guess.... the next Camaro will be made outside the US.

Why?
1) To the best that I can find, all current GM plants have models assigned to them through 2007.
2) If someone let slip that the next Camaro would be made outside the US, unions would look at it as exporting jobs, whereas if the Camaro died & work started afterwards on a replacement, it could be viewed as bringing back a discontinued car and not taking an existing car and moving production elsewhere.
3) It seems that if Camaro does come back, it will be produced in small numbers compared to what even the gen4's production numbers were.
5) Holden expects to export 50,000 cars by 2008 (it comes to roughly 30,000 for the US, with 18,000 GTOs going to Pontiac). What's the remaining 12,000 going to be? If GM makes the next GTO here in the US, what will fill Holden's excess capacity?
6) And finally, Holden seems to be the only place on the planet in GM that knows how to make a cheap, low volume, RWD chassis profitably, without charging $30K+ for it.

But I admit my guess has problems as well:
1) GM can still build a plant & have it online by 2007 (the earliest Camaro's likely to return).
2) If GM can have a plant that turns out RWD sedans & GTOs, it's likely Camaro could also be made there as well.
3) Expanding the Holden brand into Canada & Mexico could also account for the increase of exports.
4) The sporty coupe market could explode again, making the case for a high volume Camaro.
5) GM can still buy RWD drivelines & suspension from Holden, design a body here, and still use a plant producing FWD cars to assemble them (TRUE FACT: Ford is remodeling the Chicago Taurus plant to produce the FWD 500 & Freestyle, but the plant is also being designed to assemble rear drive vehicles on the same line as well :eek:! Yes, something is up at Ford! :p ).

Since the Camaro (and Firebird) has been built outside of the U.S. since 1993, I don't really think that the UAW would really have anything to do with it. It hasn't been made in the U.S. in over 10 years, so I doubt that U.S. auto workers would gripe about that now - they wouldn't be losing anything. The C.A.W. might be another story, but as other posters have said how much of that is true is up in the air.

I can absolutely guarantee you GM will NOT build a new plant for Camaro production if they bring it back. They'll add a line at whatever plant the platform it ends up being built on is assembled. They aren't going to build a new plant for what I think you correctly surmise will be imagined as a low volume car. I don't know if it will be less than 4th gens, but if GM are smart (which they can be sometimes, honest) they'll look at the late 4th gen figures as profitibility targets rather than 200,000 cars a year or whatever. Then, if it's a surprise hit you can crank up production if necessary.

Originally posted by Z28Wilson
So basically, no one knows anything. :p

I do hope the next Camaro is built in North America.

Well, we do know two things.

1) We have no Camaro.

2) GM won't tell us if we can expect a new one.

Originally posted by guionM
rear drive vehicles on the same line as well :eek:! Yes, something is up at Ford! :p ). [/B]

I think a plant converted to GM's latest plant configuration, (as in the new Lansing plant which assembles the CTS), could assemble more than one car line with great efficiency.

Just remember this-

One of the big mistakes GM made with the F-Car is that they had a "low-volume" vehicle built on a unique platform at a plant that built only the F-car line.

What GM has to do is adopt some of Holden's production principles, that is, you take a single platform and build a whole bunch of different vehicles off of it with the appropriate modifications. In GM North America's case they should design a low-cost platform that can handle RWD and AWD with V8 engines.

Another thing to consider is this -

If you want to build a few niche vehicles one thing you can do is not only share platforms, but share as much of the electrical architecture and electrical components as you can. You can also share other components that are not critical to the brand, image, and performance of each of these vehicles (dome lights, fuel filler caps, HVAC control heads, hood release levers and cables, some electrical switches, etc.). The more sharing that you do among these niche vehicles, the closer you come to having a single, high-volume vehicle line, and you can have higher utilization of plant capacity as well.

Well said hotrodtodd74, thats why many think(thought) that if a 5th gen does appear it may come off the same platform of the new CTS (Sigma Platform), which is somewhat expensive, but like you said the more cars you can build using the same parts the cheaper it is. I certainly wouldn't mind having a few caddy parts in a camaro.