Allow me:

The later question about why you can't order options separately, is because of a lack of 60s era sales volume in cars.

A pickup truck selling 900,000 per year is going to be able to have more solo options than a Mustang that sells, say, 160,000 annually. While at the same time, that Mustang selling 160K annually is going to have more options available singularly than a Camaro that ran 40-60K per year in annual sales.

In the late 60s, Mustangs were still selling well over 300K cars per year on average. Ford came close to breaking 1 million Mustang's 1st year. We just don't see those volumes today.

 

Seems like a topic I've seen before...

I would think a 5th Gen Camaro with a 3.6l V6, LS3 and engine specific to the Z/28 would easily match the Mustang's V6, 4.6L 3v V8 in GT/Bullitt and the 5.4L 4V SCV8 in the GT500.

I don't see what they are doing is any different than what the Camaro "should" get.

The 60's are long over and so are all those engine options.

 

I prefer to look at the from the perspective of not wanting them to "dilute" the breed. Having a bunch of engine options leaves room to in effect water down the car's overall performance image.

The thirdgens suffered from this and still have a crappy rep nowadays. You could get total boat anchor V8 engines all the way up even into the IROCs/TAs. Several crappy V8 choices, and one or two decent ones. You had no way of knowing what was really under the hood. As a result your average Joe considered them slow and beaten by the 5.0 Stangs, when in reality the properly optioned Fbody w/ either the hotter 305 TPI 5spd combo or the 350 TPI was great competition for the Stangs. We were hurt by peanut cammed 305 TPI autos and even the base LG4 and TBI 305s in the IROCs/Z28s.

Ford had it right back then, there was one V8. If you got a V8 Mustang you got the hot V8 for that year. Seems like maybe the autos got 5-10 less hp a couple years, but it wasn't a night and day engine difference. They did finally introduce the Cobra but it didn't share engine options w/ the base cars.

If they're going to have different V8s in the Camaro they need to only be available in distinct models. And having a bunch of distinct models takes money and probably steals funding from better overall packages.

If the "standard/base" V8 is something like the LS3 I'm all for just having that, no lesser choices in a V8 equipped model. Or at most having that and a 500+ hp super Camaro available that are clearly different model Camaros...

 

edited

 

Yes, Ford can rebadge and stripe up the same Mustang GT in 100 different flavors with near zero moddifcations done to increase performance.
Ford is just awesome.

 

So we wanna be like that Wendys commercial where all of the people run into that open hole? I would rather have 3 GREAT V8 options, instead on one. Why not make a 300 HP 6.0(G8), 400 HP 6.2 (GXP), and a 500+ SC 6.2? Make a couple gear choices for each, stripper cars, choose your own wheels out of what ever there "packages" are. Why not make choices like this? Why cant we build our own? Id rather not sped 1000+ dollars on putting a different gear in my car when I could have financed it in with my car from the factory. What if I want fully power cloth seats with z28 wheels and the SS engine. Why cant we pick this? They did it in 1967, Get it together lets have a car that WE THE CONSUMER wants! I dont want to check A-B-C when I order my car!!! I want a fricken questioner!!!

What brought this own is when I went and test drove a G8 and you either got a plain G8 GT or a loaded G8 GT. There was no variance! I feel like those wendys commercials when our cars are just another number!

 

When you refuse to listen to the reasons why as pointed out in this thread, there really is no reason to continue on....

 

All this would be just fine if the car was sold by order only and only a few where bieng sold. But since Gm has to sell alot of these to make it profitable and keep the line dealerships have to order them and keep them in inventory. That is why there are packages to please the masses. Otherwise dealers would have all these oddball equipt cars that just sit and sit and sit costing money till some one looking for that specific car to buy it. Just doesnt make sense to do it that way.
But gm as well *** all other manafactures will give us the ability to customize every car in there lineup any way we want with factory parts and accessories. SO you can make it your own.
If you can afford it you can finanace anything you want into your loan, as long as your credit is good enough to handle the advances.

 

One of the reasons why the mustang has been successful is that it did offer quite a bit of customization when compared to it's contemporaries. It offers less now than before...but so does everybody else.

That, combined with the ridiculously huge aftermarket available for it, helped it sell because people could feel like it was THEIRS.

Some things that I think would be neat:

Upon selecting a trim level (Base, RS, SS, Z/28), It'd be nice if you could check off some options that personalized the feel for you. Things like

- optional seats. Recaros, perhaps, with a couple choices in color for the more popular paint options.
- Emblem/spoiler delete.
- Available suspension package for ANY trim level. Performance oriented, the standard suspension for Z/28, made available as a ~$1200 option on any car.
-Two different available (non-paint) stripe packages.
-Optional "light bodywork" Possibly a SMC hood/quarterpanels type thing. Shaped slightly differently and could shave off maybe 50 pounds. Carbon Fiber would be nice but it's still prohibitively expensive.
-Two different dashboard decos. Same interior, but different plastic colors available (nothing crappy looking...maybe one with more brightwork, one with nothing but nice looking plastics)

These things would all be pretty simple to do and add quite a bit of personalization without going overboard and increases costs for everybody. It's kind of the set-up that the Mustang is currently using, basically.

 

I actually believe that some people do not read, they only post. These are probably the same people who do not know the difference between a fast food restaurant and an automobile factory.

 

The Roush, Shelby, and Saleen Mustangs are all aftermarket tuner cars, not available from Ford. So they're out.

Out of the remaining 5 Mustang models, 3 are limited production models with more standard features than the base and GT models. Regardless, none of these 5 models offer "a la carte" option picking. Every single one of them has option packages, with maybe one or two stand-alone options.

 

I want all of you naysayers to go here and look at this http://www80.forddirect.fordvehicles...sh&statetoken=
That is the options for fords base GT. Build your own GT there, you will find a gear upgrade option, 2-3 interior options, 2-3 sound options, remote start, different exhaust tips, different dash layouts, ect. How can a company do this?

 

I just went there, and it wasn't the first time I priced one out.

It started out with the standard stuff...exterior and interior colors, manual or automatic, nothing new.

A gear upgrade option. You are right, that's one that the Camaro didn't always have before.

So then you get into the other stuff. A few wheel options, but one was only available with another package.

I saw two (not 3) sound options. I don't think the next Camaro will have a problem with that.

I saw two (not 3) seat options. We didn't have them in the 4th gen, but it wouldn't be surprised if we got them in the 5th gen. Hope so anyway.

So than I got into the OPTIONS tab, and there are some decent ones there. I noticed that when I clicked a couple of them, a window would pop up telling me that I need be required to add another package and in some cases, I had to remove a package that I already had.

I believe that some of the other options are installed at the dealer or just arrive in the trunk, like floor mats, front end bra, etc.

You bring up a good example, they do have some decent options that I hope we get at least most of the same with the Camaro (I think there is a good chance, too), but still a far cry away from being able to select every item individually.

 

Im not trying to change the system or anything but maby open a few eyes. I was really dissapointed with what you could pick from on a G8.

 

There's no comparison with the G8. It is being limited in what you can choose because they are being built in Australia and shipped here.

You might be interested to know that even with GM's practice of bundling options in packages, Pontiac says that there are several thousand possible option combinations for G6. Overall, I think that's pretty good for a mass-produced car.