Well, having purchased a home in one of the higher cost places to live in the country (all of New England has been out of control for a good 5 years now), I figured I'd throw in my .02...

If I didn't have a cell phone, cable internet, and hadn't bought my fiance a fancy ring, I'd have a good $300 more per month than I do now. That's almost $4k per year. I can afford my mortgage (thankfully due to a 4.5% fixed interest rate), and I can afford my car payment. I can even go out and afford a brand new Malibu or Cobalt, if I wanted a 60 month payment and had to have a new car. My Z28 is tucked away in the garage, having been paid off since I graduated 3.5 years ago. I pay insurance on 2 cars for 6 months a year when its registered, which isn't cheap when you consider Springfield MA is one of the highest cities to insure a car in MA, right behind Boston.

I make an ok salary (having not yet utilized my MBA to find a new job yet), and round it out by working at the dealer on Saturday. My bank job pays the basic bills...the dealership helps out with the aforementioned frills. If I didn't want the frills, I could squeak by with one job...but I choose to work harder to get some of the more fun things.

What's my point? Sometimes, people need to stop whining and be thankful for what they have. I own my own home, have 2 decent cars, the essentials and not a lot else. What else could I hope for at 25? I look back to my parents, and what they had at my age. A new Chevette and a rotted '73 Camaro in 1981. They had the essentials, and not much else. People who whine about how much "eaiser" it was years ago don't consider how much more STUFF we have today. Play Station 2s. Computers with flat panel monitors. Big TVs. Fancy stereos. Cars with 19" bling. Some things the "me" generation considers essential, then whines about bills, needs to consider all they have.

One thing I love is that cars last longer today. Our '99 Grand Am, with 70k on it, needs a strut mount and a serpentine belt...otherwise, it putters along beautifully, and will for another 3-4 years. That 1962 car Scott mentions would have been one big hole by 1970!

One final comment on credit cards...they can be the devil, but if you're smart, you can use them to your advantage big time. I just finished paying off my living room set with a 0% for 24 mos special. Now, I'm buying a $2k home theater for my soon-to-be-redone living room, with a 0% for 12 month special. If you're smart, and pace yourself, its amazing the purchasing power consumers can wield today.

 

Being a fan of the opposing team in orange, I can vouch that a situation like this isn't as black and white as "standing by your spouse" through a tough time. I don't know the specifics of the Lions disgust, but I know it couldn't have been as bad as the Bengals over the last 15 years.

We had inept ownership threaten to move the team if not given a new stadium, go over budget on said stadium, then take all of the new revenue and put out a very sub-standard product in an era when parity reined in the NFL. Year after year, the loyals fans would show up for new coaches and draft picks (busts) to watch a team that was the punch-line of the league. It wasn't until a few years ago that fans made their displeasure felt by not attending games that it finally registered with stubborn ownership to bring in someone who knew how to run an NFL team.

In the end it's just sports, but it's big money and means a lot to a lot of people. To stay with your analogy, maybe it takes a strong message (not divorce) to get through to a loved one to change their ways. Maybe you don't dress up to support the other team, but if you act like nothing's wrong, aren't you essentially endorsing that person/behavior?

 

Hate to turn this into "sports talk radio" but man Scott, the Lions have been so utterly pathetic for more than 40 years, I understand fan frustration. The Fords don't have a clue how to run that organization from an on-the-field product standpoint (Lord knows they're great marketers...the team always makes a substantial profit, and that's why they'd never sell). We as fans feel the only way to make a point is to completely embarrass them and their franchise. Remember Wayne Fontes? He was never going anywhere....11 years of mediocrity until the GROW (Get Rid Of Wayne) movement became so overwhelming it couldn't be ignored. So now a 20-58 record over 5 years is good enough to earn the G.M. another 5 year extension...and the fans can see it coming all over again. We don't want to flounder for another decade just like under "The Big Buck". But those fans still come in droves and deep down they still love that team.

Anyway, I dunno what this all means to GM and the American Auto Industry. Tough love I guess? I think there are so many people out there who would love to buy American...but something is stopping them. Maybe it's bad product in the past, or inferior products today (perceived or otherwise).

 

LOL, we're on thread-hijack topic number 2 now

 

camaro means coolness.

 

Getting back on topic........When I got my camaro, my wife said, "are you going to grow a mullet now? I better not find that thing in the front yard on cinder blocks." It's not just how the media portrays the stigmatzed camaro owner, these mullet heads really do exist in large quantities. At least here in the south.
For example, my wife & I were at a party last yr. w/ some well to do, professional, snobby coworkers of hers. The topic of cars came up & of course, names like BMW & Mercedes come up. Then I was asked what car I drive. About half of the guys jaws dropped in disbelief (not in a good way). Of course 1 jack *** said, "but you don't have a mullet" Most of these guys have not seen a camaro up close since high school. So, later in the evening we went out to the car, I cranked it up, nothing but oooo's & aaaahhh's. So, I change a few "eliteists" minds about the camaro image. 1 of those dorks actually bought a camaro.

 

Lighting the tires up, sliding just a little bit sideways down the beachfront road somewhere on the Redneck Riviera with the T-Tops off with Van Halen "PANAMA" cranked I'd like to see that in a new ad for the 5th gen.

Yes it perpetuates some of the sterotype, but that's the kind of fun I like to have in the Camaro. Well, I'll do it in the 740iL too, but it seems more appropriate in the Z28

 

PANAMA UH OH UH OH UH!

 

'Ya know, I've read thru this thread again and seen alot of good points, but I think the main "thing" for me was the reason I bought the car we have now.

We were looking for a convertable early in '03; my lovely wife had been thinking about one for a while, but I was unsold due to what was on the market in '03. The final deal was I'd go for it, but I got to pick it.

We looked at what was out there and it was sad. The Chrysler Seabring- not a bad car, just whimpy. The Toyota what-ever-it's called 2-door Camry- well built but also very whimpy and emasculated. Over to the Mustang- descent power but felt cramped and very cheesey interior. The list continued, but nothing worth-while was available and we were not in the market for a 2-seater.

We stopped at a local Chevy dealership on a Sunday night after they had closed after spying a '65 Malibu convertable on the used lot. We wondered around a while and I spotted a black Camaro SS convertable, burried in the back of the lot, and I got curious. Whe I got close, it still had a dealer sticker on the window and I got excited. The next morning (I called in sick ) and went in to check it out. The dealership had brought it in from a neighbor island (in Hawaii) where they couldn't sell it due to the sticker-price along with the Hawaii mark-up. One drive and I was sold! Got a descent price and I think I may have bought one of the very last 4th generations sold; we bought it in June of '03 brand new only 12 miles on it!

The Camaro to me has always represented a quick, good handling car that is a descent value. It simply has a mystique that is intangable. I drove Mustangs (late '80s-early '90s) for a while because they were cheaper and were quicker at the time. But my 1st love was the Camaro- my 1st car was silver '82! The always seemed "classier" than the Mustangs; more refined, less gimmick. When I had the chance (and the means) to buy one I was lucky enough to run across one.

If the MOCO can build a solid car that uses QUALITY COMPONENTS not cheap plastic that looks like cheap plastic they will have a winner.

They would do well to take a few lessons from Harley-Davidson. They are not trend-setters in terms of technology by any means and have been building the same type of bike (save the VRod) for decades. Look at a Duo-Glide side-by-side of a new Heritage Softail or Road King. A lot can be said for quality products (like steel vice plastic in HD's case) but more can be said for good marketing.

Allen

 

For the Z28: a comercial similar to the commercial for the introduction of the 4th gen WS6 or the dodge magnum, hell any commercial for that matter. I saw tons of commercials for mustangs and rarely any for my beloved Z28.

 

I always thought that the Camaro should have been the car bugging the Corvette in those year-old Cobalt commercials. I think of the Camaro as the younger brother of the Corvette; the one that plays music to bug old grandpa vette, the one that bumps it in the back to **** it off, and the one that races it up a winding mountain path. One difference though... the Camaro wouldn't get wasted by the Vette in the winding mountain path commercial .

 

I have to admit, that Cobalt commercial made me feel like I ate way too much at a Chinese Buffet waaaaay too early in the morning. It just didn't seem right to have a car of that nature being "classed" for lack of better words with the Corvette.

In all honesty I can't say that I remember many advertisements promoting the Camaro via television commercials and that is also upsetting. I believe that's one thing GM should have done with the 4th gen cars on a regular basis. I remember seeing the stoplight Trans Am commercial and it would be hard to top a commercial like that but it was on the right track. What I would like to see, and this is just my .02, is a commercial that covers the Camaro's history from 1st through 4th gen and then sneak in some cocky way of saying "it's back."

I wish I still had a copy of it but maybe someone else remembers the post. Back in 2002 a fellow by the name of Neal wrote a page long "goodbye" of sorts to the Camaro. He started out explaining how he felt the first time he saw a 1967 Camaro coming out of a parking lot in a power-slide and went on to explain how he felt sitting in his 4th Gen after going out cruising for the night 30 years later. Long story short the post literally made this 32 yr old cry and If GM could bottle that kind of passion and use it in thier advertisements, they'd be golden

 

Good point. I don't particularly want the Camaro commercials to be full of testosterone. I would like to see them filmed in such a way that it makes my eyes tear up and smile that it is back. That would be really cool.

 

The thing is tons of rednecks/mulletheads drive Mustangs as well!!!

 

wow i just read some depressing comments left on the yahoo news story about the camaro concept...

http://news.messages.yahoo.com/bbs?a...37138456&mid=1

granted, 99% of them are moronic idiots.. it proves the stigma is still out there