And of course the history was that they were originally planning a "Monte Carlo" or Impala Coupe or something before the project was reset.

However, given what they had, GM undeniably made the Camaro a "Camaro". Not everyone might like the size/weight, but otherwise the execution of this car is out of the park. Nobody is going to confuse this car with a Monte or generic Chevy Whatsit. Its clearly Camaro through-and-through.

If I were to be critical of GM, it would be more on the strategic level. BMW and other compact luxury cars have been eating their lunch for a long time. 3-series sells 500K+ units per year globally, and compared to that the Camaro is a tiny side-show. Fuel economy and size have always been a big issue everywhere else GM sells cars. Yet they prioritized the full-sized RWD architecture over the compact one. If they had their plan sorted at Cadillac on how to position it as a global luxury brand, there may have been a smaller platform to spin Camaro off of.

So maybe they got the big picture wrong, but the small picture (Camaro) right.

 

Power windows, Door locks, Air bags, ABS, large wheels, power seats, high safety ratings, air conditioning, and an interior that does not look like the interior of a cup car .

 

Yeah, all that stuff is available on all sorts of lower end cars. Nothing special there to compromise a design over.

 

After spending a week or so reading one or two posts each day in this thread, I'm finally caught up again. Some responses...

False. Just not right away. If that's what you want, sit on your hands for a year or two, and keep driving that LS1 you like so much. (I don't blame you for that; I like mine too.)

I'm sure lots of dealers will mark Camaro up, but Jason has something in the works to make sure we can all find a fair price on a Camaro. Remember, Refuse Camaro Markups!

He concluded nothing of the sort.

That's exactly what I was guessing. I wasn't alone, either. As others have said, the only thing that really got missed was the L99 designation.

Not to imply that I'm not happy with the powertrain options -- I'm ecstatic. I'd like to understand a couple things better, though:

1) Why doesn't GM put AFM on manual-transmission cars?
2) Performance aside, why does the automatic version of the SS have less horsepower than the manual?

But those are a totally separate conversation.

That's a pretty naive viewpoint. Yeah, GM is paying them anyway, but you have to consider opportunity cost. What would those engineers have accomplished instead, had you not pulled them aside to reduce Camaro weight? How much potential earnings are being sacrificed by not getting that done (or not getting it done as soon)?

I simply cannot imagine that you could not imagine this.

Not everyone has the same priorities you do. I'll bet there are literally millions of people who would love to drive an affordable, sporty-looking coupe, but who have little to no interest in performance/handling/nimbleness/etc. Go drive a late-90's Cavalier through a stiff crosswind, and then come back and tell me that a little weight wouldn't have made the car feel more stable and safe.

How is that really the analogy here? Please explain.

Nope. The Z06 package improves all performance aspects of the Corvette, whereas 1LE upgrades didn't have any effect on acceleration (except for a couple years in which 1LE cars got a better gear ratio in 5th, which doesn't matter on the drag strip).

IMO, you have your list exactly backwards. Grip always matters, regardless of the type of turn. Cars with good grip and response but poor transitional ability still handle well in most situations. It takes an S-curve to show poor transitional ability, and in an S-curve, grip and response are still critical.

Also, you're missing a key element of the list: balance. IMO this one belongs at #2 after grip. Maybe you're lumping this in with transitional ability, but I think it deserves to be considered separately.

From a purely scientific standpoint, the above makes approximately zero sense. All other things being equal, every time you add 100 lbs to a car (and re-tune the suspension using the same criteria you used before), that 100 lbs is going to have a smaller effect on the car's overall handling characteristics.

Taken to an extreme to illustrate the point:

Let's imagine that a shifter kart, with driver, weighs 300 lbs. Let's add 300 lbs of lead weight, doing so in a manner that maintains the exact same center of gravity. Now it weighs 600 lbs. What do you think happens to the handling characteristics?

Now, let's add 300 pounds in the same manner to a Silverado HD, taking it from 5300 lbs to 5600 lbs. What do you think happens to the handling characteristics?

I think you're fooling yourself, unless the track in question has lots of long straights and not many tight corners. 295hp, 3100lbs, mid-engine... that's a recipe for phenomenal handling. (It's also a recipe for a $70,000 car that's not very practical, but that's not the point here).

 

I was thinking the same track where the '84 Z28 was faster than the '84 944.

The September R&T had a track test where the nimble cars didn't do that well, even on the tight courses, and they got killed on the more open ones.

Also, the Cayman is only 245hp at this moment. You're quoting Cayman S, and I was very careful to leave the 'S' off.

 

Because the Camaro was intended to be a drag race oriented car, correct? Must be what that three link / panhard rod set up, Miata sized rearend and big front bar is for, right? Oh, never mind.....


And in my opinion, you're exactly dead wrong.

Let's say I build a car that has a dead perfect mid corner balance. In a corner this car will slide either end at the driver's whim. We could do this by simply tweaking tire sizes and load distribution.

Now let's say that same car is sprung so softly and has bars so small and shocks so poorly valved that it simply won't change direction to save it's life. It just flops around. Oh sure, once you get it moving in a given direction, it takes a set and becomes nicely balanced. However, getting there takes forever and is a disaster.

Still think balance trumps transitional ability in handling? What "handling" is there if the car fall over on itself and plows straight ahead until it finally decides to change direction? Balance can affect a car's transitional abilities but it does not define it.

Balance is important (notice I mentioned it TWICE in my original post) and overlaps some different aspects of handling but is worthless if the car doesn't transition.

Do you understand the difference between handling and grip? Do you understand the following:

Grip is a factor that can affect handling because it can affect balance.
Grip increases your overall speed because you can go through a corner faster but that doesn't tell us anything about the handling characteristics of a particular car.
A car can have monster grip through huge sticky tires and still not handle worth a damn.
A car with excellent transitional characteristics and average grip will be faster than a car with excellent grip and average transitional abilities.
A car with great grip, balance, and transition will get beat if it doesn't respond promptly and predictibly to the driver's inputs.

Therefore as I said:
1) transitional ability (balance is part of this)
2) response
3) grip (balance has a small role)

Name one car that has poor transitional ability but still "handles well".

Sure it does. You just proved it yourself by taking it to an extreme (the kart). The other example (Silverado HD) is simply a red herring.

The kart has no suspension and therefore additional mass can't be overcome with engineering. The Solstice has larger tires and posesses, in some respects, a chassis that is superior to the Miata's. It covers its additional bulk.

The Silverado has long passed the point where mass can be overcome and obviously adding more weight would have a lesser effect there. The Cobra can't cover its weight disadvantage to the GT despite having larger tires and an IRS.

At least with regard to the previous gen Mustang, we have found the point at which weight really starts showing up in the form of decreased performance. If I'm not mistaken, (although there is no IRS involved) the current Mustang has a similar situation right now with the GT500 and the lesser GTs.

You did read my point about there being a point where you can no longer cover for the added weight, right?


We had one of those (Sunfire actually). My nearly 6000lb Silverado HD is worse in a crosswind than that 2600 or so lb J body. I guess I need to buy a heavier truck. Silly me.

For the record, while other factors can and do come into play, poor shock / strut valving (something GM is notorious for) will make the car drive like crap in a cross wind much sooner than how much it weighs. That's one (of many) reason my truck now has Bilsteins and is much better with regard to crosswind stability.

 

Imagine someone wanting their Camaro to feel like my wife's Durango? Yeah, I guess I can imagine that, but it still strikes me as a dumb desire. There is a BIG difference between a car having a substantial feel ( the real definition of that is worthy of it's own thread), and saying that people actually wanted the Camaro to be heavy in order to get that 'feel'.

BTW, you can feel heavy crosswinds in our Durango too. Maybe it needs to weigh more? Doubt it.

Also, what percentage of those "millions" are serious buyers?

I'm surprised that you don't get that. Zeta is GM's largest, fullsized, RWD architecture - like the B-body of 1984 was.

To me, Camaro being built off of Zeta and roughly weighing what a G8 does, is directly analogous to a 1984 Camaro being built on the B-body, weighing roughly what a period Caprice or Olds 88 did.

If that were the case, no way could C&D pit it against the 944 with a straight face.

 

I'd put more blame for the 10-bolt on the bean counters as I suspect the engineering team really wanted to use a suitable solid axle for the 3rd and 4th Gen's. Although they certainly did what they could to surround the cheaper parts with better ones, as you have noted.

 

I think of Zeta as being more analagous to the A-body. The old B-bodies were quite a bit longer and wider than Zeta. The Holden Commodore was always smaller and narrower than the B-bodies. The full size sedan segment has almost completely disappeared in favor of SUVs. The Lucerne, DTS, Crown Vic, etc., are about all that's left.

So it'd be more like having a 1984 Camaro built off of a 1984 Cutlass, Grand Prix, or Monte Carlo chassis. Which kind of brings us back to a week ago in this thread. Btw, in that era, the Camaro and Monte Carlo weighed about the same, much as they would today if there were a new RWD Monte.

 

I agree more with your analogy then Charlie's, but both still arent exactly right.
First, I think you mean "G" body not A body. A body died with the Chevelle back in the 70's. If there was an equivilent to the B body, it would be the larger WM platform that makes the Caprice/Statesman/Park Ave by Holden. True full sizers.
Now if we are talking about size wise, then yes the Camaro was close to the MC in size and weight, but where I disagree (and this may be getting a bit too technical reguarding chassis) is that both the B and G bodies were BOF, not unibody platforms.
Zeta/VE is not a BOF platform, it is a unitized, much more flexibile platform as we see here vs the G body. So its not exactly correct to say that this is equal to the thrid gen being built off of a G/B body.

Still doesnt rid the Camaro of its somewhat heafty weight. Just wanted to throw my .02 in here!

 

According to wikipedia, they are the same. GM renamed "A" to "G" when the FWD A-body cars (Chevy Celebrity etc) were launched.

 

Actually Scott has said the reason why they didn't go with a bigger, more heavy-duty rear axle in the 4th Gen cars was -- ding -- weight.

 

Wow. I'd sure be curious to know the weight difference between a 7.5" 10 bolt and an 8.5" 10 bolt. I'd guess around 15-20 lbs, which would be quite interesting considering the fact that apparently GM isn't too concerned that the 5th gen has gained 500+ lbs over it's predecessor.
Also, I'm sure the aftermarket is VERY thankful that GM built over 20 years of F-bodies with a rear end originally designed to serve in a 2400 lb car with 120 hp (Vega/Monza).

 

Yes, there is a little bit of strain in the analogies for the reasons you state (and yes, they were G-bodies by 1984).

 

is the difference only 20 lbs or so?