Very Interesting Point....

I am sure your all tired of reading about this, but I thought this person made a very good and clear point when talking about the reason for the demise of the F-Body:

Pulled from an article about the 1981 Trans Am:

http://www.iwaynet.net/~gl&lisk/1981ta.html

"In what could be best described as "deja vu all over again", General Motors announced on September 25th, 2001, that the Firebird and Camaro models would cease after thirty- five years of production. The reason, people weren't buying the cars any more. They had outlived their usefullness within the corporate structure within GM. Never mind that GM had left these cars largely untouched since the current models 1993 debut - GM refused to remember the mistakes of the past and was repeating them again.

You may wonder how this corelates to the 1981 Trans Am? Think for a minute how old this car was; twelve models had been spawned from the shape that was laid down in the mid-to-late sixties. I know we had changed the appearance and powerteams throughout its production term, but deep down it was still had a cramped rear seat, it was thirsty in times of fuel shortages, and took up a lot of space outside for the space it allowed inside.

When the Firebird and Trans Am were selling in huge numbers and reaping enormous profits for GM, it was the darling of the industry. But when people slowed their buying because GM had milked the current design far beyond it's twilight, GM was always too late with a new car. Witness the 80 and 81 cars, the 91 and 92's, and finally the 1999-2002 versions. As great a car as all generations of Firebirds were, thier life cycles eventually were stretched too long and poor sales late in their product cycles were a result of corporate greed. "

Originally posted by bond2
I am sure your all tired of reading about this, but I thought this person made a very good and clear point when talking about the reason for the demise of the F-Body:

Pulled from an article about the 1981 Trans Am:

http://www.iwaynet.net/~gl&lisk/1981ta.html

"In what could be best described as "deja vu all over again", General Motors announced on September 25th, 2001, that the Firebird and Camaro models would cease after thirty- five years of production. The reason, people weren't buying the cars any more. They had outlived their usefullness within the corporate structure within GM. Never mind that GM had left these cars largely untouched since the current models 1993 debut - GM refused to remember the mistakes of the past and was repeating them again.

You may wonder how this corelates to the 1981 Trans Am? Think for a minute how old this car was; twelve models had been spawned from the shape that was laid down in the mid-to-late sixties. I know we had changed the appearance and powerteams throughout its production term, but deep down it was still had a cramped rear seat, it was thirsty in times of fuel shortages, and took up a lot of space outside for the space it allowed inside.

When the Firebird and Trans Am were selling in huge numbers and reaping enormous profits for GM, it was the darling of the industry. But when people slowed their buying because GM had milked the current design far beyond it's twilight, GM was always too late with a new car. Witness the 80 and 81 cars, the 91 and 92's, and finally the 1999-2002 versions. As great a car as all generations of Firebirds were, thier life cycles eventually were stretched too long and poor sales late in their product cycles were a result of corporate greed. "

I feel alot of things in that article are either wrong or misses the point. Actually, it misses most every point it brings up.

*Both Camaro and Firebird were to be discontinued in 1975. GM later ammended it's decision to cancel Camaro, and continue the Firebird line. GM decided to continue both cars as they began to pick up the sales of the departed Barracuda, Challenger, Javelin, and as well as new buyers.

* The 2nd gen cars were NEVER the "darling of the industry" till their sales started climbing in 1976, and continued through the 1980 recession! THEN....sales dropped off for all cars. In a recession, it's the performance cars that fall 1st. The early 2nd gen cars saw their sales fall as people turned away from pony cars and muscle cars in general.

* The Turbo Trans Am engine was complete junk. It weighed more than a 455, it got worse fuel economy than a T/A 6.6, it only came with an automatic transmission, and it was the 1st time a Z28 (a 190hp 350 with cold air induction from functional rear facing scoops) could handily outrun it. Early editions had problems with developing hairline fractures in it's heads, which may have been fixed in production.

* There were no improvements made to the f-bodies their final year as he states. Quality and standard equptment levels, or anything else.

What the writer of the article did was write opinions that weren't factual. People didn't swarm to the 2nd gen f-body in in the begining (melt down of the market), the end (recession & the end of the 6.6 engines), but in the middle, the 3 years from about 76-79, these paid for designs were briefly the "darling of the industry" as Trans Ams alone sold in numbers that all F-bodies combined were selling just a few years before.