A small group continues to have issues with the 5th gen Camaro's weight. But what practical solutions to the so-called weight issue have been posted? What examples of what other manufacturers have done with weight reduction with 4+ passenger RWD cars with IRS have been posted that doesn't send prices into the stratosphere and will also drop sales numbers like a lead balloon?

By every account, the 5th gen Camaro handles extremely well... even world beating. This is from both the people at GM who've been with the car as well as people here on this site and others that have been fortunate enough to tget up close and personal with the car. The "if it handles that great at that weight, imagine what it would do if it were 500 pounds less" mentality is grossly flawed because if it weighed 500 pounds less, it would also have different (and lighter) components, including suspension components. It's those very same components that created the extra weight in the 1st place!


GM, perhaps more than any manufacturer selling in the US, is hypersensitive to fuel economy. All one has to do is to look at how far they have been willing to go in both keeping weight down and avoiding the "Gas Guzzler Tax" even on low production models. When you compare GM models with comparable imports of the same size and price class, GM vehicles tend to be lighter. This despite it's need to keep cost of materials at a reasonably low point. Any idea that GM engineers are lazy is, bluntly, pretty retarded.


Reality jumps off into fiction when thinking drifts towards getting a 400 to 500 horsepower and like-numbered torque, rear drive, independent rear suspension, V8 powered, sedan or coupe that has world class handling and braking, seats 4 or more people, and still sell on this side of $30,000. There is no volume of purchase or masses of production that's going to drop the price of titanium or alumunum per pound. OEM suppliers are already going bankrupt because they cut costs to where they're losing money, so the idea that the more you produce the cheaper it gets no longer applies to automotive suppliers... unless you're buying from Thailand or China.

The new Camaro is pretty much done save for final tuning. There will likely be running weight reduction while in production as Ford's done with the Mustang (at least 50 pounds since the current one came out), but there isn't going to be large scale weight reduction during the life of this Camaro (about 3-5 years).


So, if you want to make a lighter 6th gen Camaro, you're going to have to give up things.

Go back to a live axle? You'll probally save at least 150 pounds.

Skip 500 horsepower in favor of a maximum of 400? You'll probally save another 150-200 pounds in drivetrain, at least 3 pounds per corner in brakes and suspension, and probably another 5 pounds plus in cooling capacity. Go down to 300 and you can save a significant amount of weight on the chassis and additional weight on drivetrain, cooling, brakes, and other areas.

So, keeping in mind that we are creating a sub-$30,000 performance car that GM MUST make money on for it to see the light of day, and realizing there is no pill or wand to make cars magically lighter if we demand certain things on it, what are you prepared to give up to get a lighter Camaro next time. This chassis also MUST be shared with another car line and MUST be an actual chassis that GM currently has or is known to have in development.

Keep in mind, your best bet for a 3500 pound RWD, IRS, high performance Camaro is a Cobalt sized, with a Direct Injection V6.

I'll reserve the right to serve as "Devil's Advocate", or to shoot holes into the more unrealistic ideas.

Go!

 

Price
Overall size and interior room (especially in the rear)
Gadgets
Power (still want a V8 but it doesn't need to have anywhere near 500 hp)

 

4-5 inches of belt line.

 

You're assuming GM makes it thru the next couple years. If the extended 2010 model year Camaro sells over 125,000 units, GM might consider a budget for the 6th gen. If its under 65,000 units, the Camaro name might die with the 5th gen. First year 5th gen sales are going to mean everything for a 6th gen.

 

size and power. i'm fine with a 3500lbs 320-350hp V8. a V6 won't cut it as i like the torque of a V8.

 

no way it will sell 125k units.

 

Cost is more of an issue. No one wants to pay a years salary for a car. It's rediculous.

 

lots do.

 

Not enough to keep a product profitable, and in turn keep it on the shelf(lots).


Back on topic:

Personally, I would give up.. umm... power seats, spare tire, smaller wheels, some HP. Obviously this wouldn't be enought to drop 3-400lbs that people think it needs to drop, but this topic is assumeing I'm interested in another camaro (which has yet to be seen), AND that I'm interested n a lower weight car specifically for racing (which I'm not).

If the camaro didn't meet my performance guidelines for a road racer, I would just build my own racer from the ground up. After all it would be more satisfying to point out to others that I did it RIGHT as opposed to buying an off the shelve sub-30k car.

 

I'd be willing to give up 50-70 hp (as long as it's a 4th gen SBC), big wheels/brakes, IRS for a 10-bolt 8.5" solid axle, navigation, extra speakers/amps, some sound proofing.

 

Interesting thread... and it got me thinking. I guess I'm not one who cares much about weight. POWER/tq, styling and price matter a lot to me. I'd give up the cigar lighter to save weight

 

I'm not an engineer, I'm not an expert, and I'm not even very smart - thus I have no solutions. However, I do know I don't want a 2 ton "pony" car.

I'll let the smart people figure out how to get there. Until then, I'm out of luck....though it will be interesting to see if the Mustang rumors come true.

Here's another twist....for those that don't care what the car weighs, so long as it has xxxHP and xxxTQ, is there EVER too much weight? If 3900 lbs is ok, is 4100 ok? 4300? 4500? After all - all you have to do is make it handle and add power (ie...GT500), right? So long as it looks good, has most of the latest gadgets, and says "Camaro" on the side, you're good to go.

To each their own.

 

What could GM do to make the 6th gen lighter, more powerful, and not cost an arm and a leg you ask?

The same things Ford is doing to the MY2011 Mustang.

 

Wrong assumptions.

There is a certain number of cars automakers needs to sell to recoupe investment costs. After that, it becomes an issue of making enough cars to keep the line profitable.

Although Bob Lutz initially mentioned that the car needs to sell 100K annually to be profitable, either he misspoke, was quoted out of context, or misunderstood and here's why.

The entire Zeta architecture was created to be profitable with only Holden's sales in Australia, the Middle East, and New Zealand. That's between 125K to 175K annually. The whole program cost $1billion Australian (roughly $750 million US). Also, the Zeta was created to be cheaper to make per unit than the VZ. The LWB Holdens (Statesman and Caprice) cost $AUS250 million to create (roughly $140 million US at the time). The reason it cost so little is because Zeta is a chassis that costs very little to alter.

The new Camaro cost between 250 and 500 million US dollars to create. A mere fraction of what a typical all new car costs, even off of an existing chassis. By comparison, the reengineering-restyle on the 2008 Camaro cost GM $250 million dollars in 1997.

Overall, I would say that the Camaro will almost certainly clear significant money if it sells at only half the volume of the Commodore (averaging 60K annually) and even less if Camaro has at least a 4-5 year lifespan.

Add to the equasion that the car plant in Oshawa like Ford's Flat Rock plant that makes Mustangs is a flex plant that can build both FWD and RWD cars. Even without the RWD Impala, a FWD Impala that can be built on the same line or at least most of it will still protect the Camaro to a large degree from slow sales as Ford protected Mustang from any potential sales dip.

As for GM being around or not after the next couple of years, that's not the subject of this thread.

 

6th gen could weigh 3500 pounds however the 5th gen may not weigh 4000 pounds.

The Cadillac CTS DI V6 is base at 3,874lbs. Now I am not speaking for the V8 version of the Camaro but a 4 door sedan versus a 2 door coupe should knock off a few pounds, and other miscellaneous stuff. You can at least see the DI V6 Camaro weighing in a roughly 3800 lbs.