Haven't been here in a while!
 

Boy, I used to spend so much time on this part of the site. Haven't been here in years. Any of the old crew, (you know who you are!), still around?

Re: Haven't been here in a while!
 

Might want to post this in the Lounge. I don't think anyone looks at the "Automotive News....." forum any more. Not many of us left. Sad.

Re: Haven't been here in a while!
 

Too bad, 10 years ago this place was on fire! :(

Re: Haven't been here in a while!
 

Hi Charlie!

How do you feel about the sixth-gen Camaro? Or the fifth-gen Z/28?

I’ve had a bit of on-track behind the wheel time with a ‘16 2SS 8A. It’s still too heavy, but it is heading in the right direction for sure (300 lbs off the 5th gen!), and the driving dynamics are brilliant.

I’m still daily driving my 2002 Z28. It sees a road course a couple times a year, and I’m slowly making both it and myself more competent at that task.

:cz28:

Re: Haven't been here in a while!
 

It's safe to say that the 5th gen Z/28 exceeded expectations in focus, performance.....and cost.

The 6th gen is dynamically brilliant. One of the best performance cars GM has ever produced. With an LT1 and six speed it's a monster.

However, GM Design really dropped the ball on it's styling direction and execution, it gets very pricey very quickly and has no better utility than a Porsche 911. Those things have really hurt it in sales and GM knows it.

Re: Haven't been here in a while!
 

I’ve spent time in the back seat of that same sixth gen, as well as in a 2005 911. The Camaro is tight, but the 911 is ridiculous.

Agree on price; disagree on styling. I liked the fifth gens, but next to a sixth gen they just don’t measure up IMO. Subtle improvements that make a huge difference.

Re: Haven't been here in a while!
 

I remember when this very board was so hopping, I could barely keep up with the new posts. This was probably from 02-06 timeframe...I'd check it multiple times every day. I don't really know where the best place for info is now, but I know its not here anymore :(

I'll always be grateful for this site...if it wasn't for it, I never would've made it to NAIAS 2006, which still ranks as the best automotive experience of my life. No, I never bought a 5th gen, nor will I...but the 6th gen is oh so close to being epic...its just too damned expensive. For now, while I pay off my CTS-V for the remaining 3 years (a car that's so epic in its own right, I never thought I'd own something so amazing), my daily drivers are old school GM, from the era of the heyday of cz28.com...a 2006 Grand Prix GXP and a 99 Trans Am WS6.

Old habits die hard with me...can't wait to see how out of date my signature is when I post this lol. Last time I logged in was 2 years ago, apparently....

Re: Haven't been here in a while!
 

Same here Jason on all counts. NAIAS 2006 was amazing for a lot of reasons. Best of all was meeting people in the flesh which I only knew as internet friends until then. The night before the reveal in the hotel bar was epic. :eek: :yes: I think a few of us had a headache when we boarded the bus to Cobo the next morning at the crack of dawn. :lol:

Re: Haven't been here in a while!
 

Nice to see people checking back in. I don't know when the last time I posted here was either.

Re: Haven't been here in a while!
 

Funny... I was sitting here on break deciding if I was going to do the press days at the LA show (I shipped it last year and only did a day year before). I remembered I used to post here, wondered who was left, and still remembered my password, and it seems I was beaten to the punch... 😊

No kidding this place was on fire 10 to 15 years ago! When you get to a point automotive engineers, marketers, and even product managers and product czars monitored or even contributed under aliases, that's something pretty insane when you look at this place now...

As for the 6th gen Camaro I love everything about the styling, inside and out. But whoever threw in the flag regarding the back seats and trunk space should be flogged. Every single dimension of the 6th gen exactly matches the Mustang. Yet the Mustang has a bigger trunk and a back that a human being can get into and sit for a few blocks without it being cruel and unusual punishment. Short of being a double amputee, there's no way for someone to sit back there unless the front seat is against the dash...

Also, the price is way to high. Even Chevy admits it (via Mark Reuss not denying Camaro sales would be helped by a SS competitively priced against a RT and GT ( though now the latter' price has also jumped into hyperspace)...

Last note, around the time people started drifting to other sites, GM and Chrysler were coming out of bankruptcy, and guys were saying all types of crazy nonsense...

GM was going to make nothing but hybrids and electrics, Chrysler was going to have a big Fiat sign on their building and sell nothing but 500 derivatives. That the Feds were going to ruin everything.... Never mind that the alternative would have been the collapse of both, hundreds of thousands unemployed, a cascade collapse of any town, city, area, or area that was dependent on the car industry, and the probability that other carmakers would have pulled out as the supplier industry was decimated....

Yet here we are today with both companies strong than they've ever been, making some of the fastest, quickest cars known to mankind with quality on par with anything from Japan and....gasp....Europe.... At anywhere near the same price, or even a few grand more....

It's been a wild ride these years. I'm not as bullish on the future as I was back in the "Dark days". Self driving cars, electric sedans which while are stunningly quick, have no personality. China and Europe looking at banning sales of internal combustion engines, it's only a matter of time before we wind up in the same boat as them... But at least we're talking well over a decade....

For now, we're living the golden age of the automobile. And if Chrysler is still making a 2 door coupe and has its replacement on deck (the current Challenger was only supposed to be around 4 or 5 years tops.... It's on year NINE now!) the immediate future of rear drive sporty coupes is nowhere near as dark as it was back when this site was catching on fire, with the death of the 4th gen, talking about making a 5th gen could get you fired from GM, and Mustang was the only game in town....

Who knows, maybe rear wheel drive V8 sporty coupes wind up being the only cars with internal combustion engines that sell in the future, and everyone wants them. 🤔

Re: Haven't been here in a while!
 

Just saw my signature.... All those cars are long gone.

Re: Haven't been here in a while!
 

Wow! I'll check this board every couple years and opened it up to see you guys still here. Seeing you guys chime in again brought back a flood of memories. I got obsessed with this board back in highschool and through college. It all started with the "hiatus" of the camaro, Scott Settlemire telling us to keep the faith.

I loved getting the information from this board, first about any and all rumors surrounding the 5th gen camaro and then into the rest of the industry.

I remember the day it was unveiled. The silver car in detroit and the surprise red on in LA. Luckily i lived in LA and got to see it. It was everything I wanted in it.

I love the looks of the 6th gen although I havent had a chance to drive one.

Hope all is well!

Re: Haven't been here in a while!
 

Hey I just signed up her but cool that you have been here for years now. I do not know how the forum was like before but somehow, I like it now as it is! Not as active as some groups on FB maybe. FB is slowly killing forum sites :(

Re: Haven't been here in a while!
 

FB groups are lame, not to mention the mechanics about how the news feed functions. New age kids need to find the beauty of forums!

Re: Haven't been here in a while!
 

It's been years since I been on. So long I lost my account.