SGT Posaune

Which is why GM MUST move quickly in getting the Camaro on the street.


One quick thought...Why would GM show a "concept" like the Camaro, which they almost certainly intend to build, in 2006 and not get it on the road until 2009? That would give Ford and other companies TOO MUCH time to adjust their product before the Camaro ever sees the light of day...Just something I was thinking about.

5thgen69camaro

You mentioned the bug. It was designed in WWII and ran on the same basic design until the 70's. It was a death trap that got about 50 MPG was easy to work on, the car was cheap, parts were cheap. It was still selling in the old form up until about a year ago in Mexico. The new bug is conventional FWD and more expensive. Porshce is still running its same design with major technological advances with the classic beautiful look it started with. BMW still has the 4 front headlights and beautiful open front grille. 300C is thought of as the baby bently, I think the LS6 Camaro could be the baby M6 but ALL camaro all chevy. I would be interested in seeing how the retro Minis are doing but I have no idea. I think they translated what the car was origionally well.

The 69 was redesigned WAY too soon. If you are a 69 fan you have one year to choose from. Period.

I dont like the 4th gen because I own one. Best built? as in quality of the build? absoloutly. Best as in quality of engineering? NO WAY! NO HOW! The engine is under the dash as would be in a van, only without the removable cover to get to it easily, driving up repair costs or just making repairs yourself a major headache. If you have O2 sensors that keep showing bad, check your Cat BTW. The O2 sensors are difficult to change to put it lightly. Found out Im not the only one that came across this. The Trunk is a small valley that is filled up when you put your T-tops in them. If you put stuff on top of the tank, such as a bag of cloths or groceries and they roll it doesnt just come out, it falls into that pit. Gas Pedal is close to the carpet and I think there is plastic under there that is catching the top and side of my foot. Been tempted to buy a dremmel tool and go to town, but I shouldnt have to. The pass side, yes you DO occasionally have passengers I dont care what people say you should have to put up with to own a Chevy Camaro, The dash hit my knees on the pass side and, the lump under the floor board. I know one guy who sold his because of how uncomfortable the front seats are. I like the idea of lets make this thing fast at all costs even to usablity and maintence of the car, but in reality Im not buying into it a second time. 4th Gen was a pure toy, when considering cars. One that people ask when you have to deal with the issues of it WHY DID YOU BUY THAT THING? After a while you start to wonder yourself, and for good reason!

I understand that if you want the look of the 69 you have one year to choose from. The 70 redesign came way too early. One year is rediculous and unrealized potential of that design! The 67 and 68 are great, but I still stand by the 69 as being a refinement of them and by far the best looking. Yes being limited to one year does drive the price up. Quite honestly, there isnt another car I see going down the road that I go omg! and my heart starts pumping. Ill probably get pummeld for this but some of the nicer 5.0's evoke a similar feeling. Not to the extent of the 69 Camaro, but point is they do. I think this gives GM a level, playing ground again where it has the advantage. I realize this is subjective, but the car at least appears to have got back its utility, and practicality.

I did. My 69 is in the drive. Its about 35 years old, it numbers match, so I cant pull the motor without feeling guilty, and its got some rust which I cant afford to fix right now as the 35 yr old car is not my daily driver.
I dont agree with your "nostagia buyer" comment. There are two types of people as Im sure you know who go after they old cars. Collectors, and those who want the look and will throw whatever they want into the car. I would have liked a 383 with IRS in my 69 which is what I dreamed of when I bought it. I had thoughts of an LS2 and some type of 6 spd manual with thoughts of BMW performance. Rediculous in retrospect. Even if I could afford that I couldnt drive it every day. I think that people who like the look of old but would modify it 6 ways to sunday would love to run one with modern technology into the ground with out hurting an origional. You may be right on the 5 years but I hope not...

I say minor redesign BMW and porshce idea of redesign, keep informed from the customer. Dont loose utility again, Dont make this a toy, or force this to be a second car again, and you got a solid winner. You monkey with a total redesign, with no heratiage and you put yourself at odds with customers the way GM has done so many times. Ford ran an ad while the 4th Gen was in production. "They dont make them like they used to... We do!" That was so true and its sickening.

willz

5thgen69camaro,
Good post. I have had many of the same thoughts and have been too lazy to write that long! Good observations. I think when you start with a classic and gorgeous design, it can last a looooong time. That's the key, it's just a relatively rare occurrence. It just so happens that in the 60's, the pony cars really brought that classic long hood, short deck theme to the masses. Now this concept comes along and provides all of that plus a wicked, almost custom "chopped" look that is just so damned aggressive. IMO, Camaro has been the most successful when the design was the most aggressive.
With all due respect to the 4th gen lovers, there were so many factors involved in the downward spin of that car that you can't really compare it to how the concept might do in production. The 2nd and 3rd gen cars had long, successful runs. The 4th gen car suffered from some fairly substantial design flaws that made it less appealing to the masses, and after the mid 90s the advertising just wasn't there. All of this has been discussed before, but it is important.
The 4th gen cars also broke from the overall successful styling theme of the original pony cars. Car and Driver stated that the car no longer had the classic long hood, short deck theme, but rather a "short hood, short deck" look, with A LOT of greenhouse. This style had its time, it was new and fresh, BUT IT DID NOT HAVE THE CLASSIC PROPORTIONS THAT WERE SO NATURALLY PLEASING TO THE EYE AS THE ORIGINALS. The styling of the 4th gen cars was easily dated, ironically enough, because of its uniqueness. I never cared for the style of the 4th gen cars, and it is why I've never owned one, though I came close on the 1998 SS. I do think the new car could last longer, with regular but relatively minor updates, because it returns to those classic proportions that are really timeless.
I hope the new car has a long and prosperous future, but if not, I just hope it materializes long enough for me to get my order in. I LOVE THE CONCEPT. It invokes a lot of automotive passion in me. And that hasn't happened to me in a LOOOONG time!

RussStang

I don't understand how people can pick apart the flaws of the 4th gen, but feel that the 3rd gens were fine. Both the 3rd and the 4th gen feel so freakin similiar to me, that I feel justified in saying that most of their flaws are shared. I think there was alot more to the death of the Camaro then just "the 4th gen made too many sacrifices." The 3rd gen made many of the same sacrificies, and sold very well.

willz

I was mainly referring to style. The 3rd gen cars had the classic, long hood, short deck proportions that appealed to the masses that had been buying that look for a long time. The 4th gens abandoned that in favor of their own unique look. That's basically all I'm saying. I think they appealed more to a younger crowd, and that's fine, I just think the classic proportions maybe have broader appeal. I'm not 4th gen bashing, in many ways, they were the best of the series from a performance standpoint-just making some observations.

RussStang

Fair enough, but I wouldn't say the hood on my car is all that short. Looks pretty damn long to me, especially from behind the wheel.

CamaroBoy96Z28

I'll attribute the 4th gen's flaws to the engine being under the cowl. That really just hurts the car and my hands. It makes you wonder what some people are on when they design cars and parts .

5thgen69camaro

exactly!

I actually thought the 3rd gen hoods were too long. Other posters have explained very well that the changes were made for drag, but I really dont like what that did to the look and probably handeling. The long front overhang just seems unnessecary. Shortening the wheelbase in 82 seemed like a mistake. The engine was still accessable though. I agree that that flaws where shared, but at the same time I think they would have been better cars without those sacrafices. I liked the 4th Gen until I realized that in order to get that short front end the motor was put under the dash. I felt like the GM engineers took a que from old toyota comercials where they weld the hood shut. The laundry list of well if you want a Camaro you have to put up with X was growing to X, Y, and Z. From the pics for my taste the hood looks perfect. Engine completely under the hood, however not extended past that. The wheels are pushed back out to the corners correcting the changes in 82 was it? I also perfer the short less cumbersom doors and I love the look alot as well.

PacerX

There were very valid styling reasons for the engine being under the cowl, but...

Mostly, the engineers were "on" the idea that moving the engine rearward in the car as far as possible is a good idea from a performance standpoint...


HOLY BUCKETS, I've done everything there is to do to a 4th gen from heads/cam/headers/long block/you-friggin-name-it and it ain't all that bad.

ESPECIALLY since the easiest engine/transmission swap there is in a Camaro might be on the 4th gens... jack the front end up, set you up jackstands, undo a few bolts, put the tranny jack in the right place and ***BOOM*** ...you drop the whole subframe.

LT1's well and truly sucked for working on, but LS1's, because the motor itself is smaller than the SBC, ain't all that bad.

MUCH MUCH MUCH easier to work on than the Aurora and SSEi I had.

5thgen69camaro

It was good as a performance standpoint. The 3800 V6 is what I got and its squeezed right up against that cone Firewall. I dont know how thin your SB is but the 3800 is fat. Alot bigger than the early V6. I guess I could of droped the engine to change the O2 sensor...

PacerX

On the V8's you can remove all 4 of the O2 sensors pretty easily.

Did you drop the exhaust?

Wait a second...

Did you ever own an LS1 powered 4th?

0toinsanein5.4sec

Ill throw in my 2 cents about the 4th gens and the engine bay and working on it. LAst summer my car (3.8l) basically pms'd to the extreme and altogether had a lot of work on. it was expensive. but the thing that really sticks out to me like a couple sore thumbs and a knife in the gut was this: I dont exactly why we needed to but we needed to change two of the "ignition cables" The guy talked to some family members about it and they gave him the green light to go ahead and work on it. right when they got off the phone i asked what they were doing and how much it was going to cost. they said the "ignition cables" (not realizing that meant spark plug cables) and that it was 600 bucks. 600 dollars to change 2 spark plug cables! When i heard that i immediately tried calling the guy who had given us 3 numbers to reach him (wtf i know) and he had coned out immidiately. I called every day and couldnt get a hold of him till it was done. Why was it $600 because they are hard to get to (and i agree) it should have been engineered to be different. seriously.

Since then i have changed all the plugs on the car and that was no easy feat as well. took a few days and had a learning curve (now i could do it much quicker but it was still a PITA and left me with some scratched up hands. i have also changed all plugs and wires on our SS and although it was challenging at times it was a good deal easier, but the back ones were still hard to get to.

Scott please tell the engineers to make this car easy to work on and so the people who take it to shops for repair wont get such huge bills that make u hate the car a little bit more everytime. This also hurts long time reviews as i wouldnt be surprised say in 94-95 time frame magazines who were doing long term tests on the car and had maintanence or repair work doneto the car they werent too happy with the bills.(let me clarify i dont know if this happened - but it wouldnt surprise me) this could hurt sales from people buying it later on and didnt want to be faced with massive bills for petty things like spark plug wires that should be cheap quick fixes.

5thgen69camaro

Nope. the 3800 was the bigger V6. Buick I was told. Yes I dropped the Y pipe. Dropped it once to change the plugs and broke the studs off it. The car filled with Carbon Monoxide all the way to the dealer. The smaller V6 on earlier 4th gen I saw in a junk yard once which had plenty of room. You could actually get to everything from the top if you reached in, but that block was tiny. I would take a good look at the engine bay of the next car I buy...

PacerX

While there are standards for serviceability, don't expect GM to bend over backwards to make "once every 100,000 miles" spark plug changes easy.

In particular, don't expect them to make the car itself bigger to do so.

It's common practice to have to tip a FWD motor to get at the rear bank. And we've lived with that for the last 20 years in one way or another.

Now, a great advantage is the smaller physical size of the LSx motors compared to the SBC, but at the end of the day serviceability is going to be relatively less important than other considerations...

I'd file this one under "nice to have, but well down the list compared to performance, styling, fuel economy, etc..."

Many, many, many buyers (including many who buy the car because it's fast) are never going to do anything more complicated than swap out an airfilter.

Actually a huge percentage...