Why didnt GM use a V chassis for the 5th gen? Outside of the conversion it would have to take, Im sure GM would have done what was needed. Hell, they did it for the GTO. Now, by 97 they had to know that there were gunna have to be some changes if the twins were going to be produced after its deadline right? Now, they were making a profit so GM would still like to keep this car if it adds to the bottom line, and keeps customers coming back to GM. Im not sure on when exactly the V chassis was ready down under, but I know its around 97-98? Why didnt GM get Ste.T upgraded, or whatever needed to be done to make this car exisit after 02? It seems as if GM is going to make them again, but why didnt they get working on this before? Why give such a long time period and allow disheartend fbody owners to look around at Ford and a possible Dodge coupe? The V chassis does seem to be a better chassis, and Holden has shown its flexability. The Camaro was a halo car for Chevy. This is the only part of the story that I dont understand? GM seems to be interested in making a Camaro now, but why didnt they just use the V chassis, therefor giving themselves time to build a Zeta chassis, and then could release that in about 5 years.
Is it that upgrading Ste.T would be a waste since the plant was falling apart? Was it inside GM politics? Was it that the car was just not needed anymore? On top of this V chassis, they could have made Utes, and a large sedan for Buick. I dont understand why this wasnt thought of? It almost seems like a no-brainer? Tons of cars, a great platform, and you have a large line of cars that could have helped boost GM's sales numbers. Just a thought.
Im sure GunionM can fill me in here.

 

I will try to clear some of this up. Number one the Current V series WAS looked at as the Camaro chassis replacement, but due to its up right stance and many other things it wasn't considered right for the job. St. Therese is a massive plant capable of like 300K cars a year and Camaro AND Firebird were using like half of that. St. Therese was also very old and falling apart to gut the plant just to build a new line for a chassis that was being discontinued in a few years doesn't make sense economically. Also there are some politics in play right now that prevent GM from building the car anywhere else. Holden doesn't have the production capacity to produce them and ship them to the states like they did with GTO because they are MAXED right now with production, believe the actually added a new shift to keep up with the deadline. Yes it would have ROCKED to have that platform and all its stablemates in the states but wouldn't have make sense.

 

I doubt the more qualified person on this will answer, so I'll take a modest crack at it.

Why not the "V" chassis?

The reason given here some time ago was that it wasn't a "Camaro", which I took great issue with. Then 2 years ago, I when I went to Australia, I had a chance to spend some time around a couple of people who had Monaros. I even got to drive the supercharged V6 version.

I had to agree, the cars weren't Camaros. They were solid, well handling, and pretty quick cars. But they were also laden with all types of electronic geehaws, had a more BMW-like feel, and lacked the rawness (for lack of a better word) Camaro has. In short, these cars were way too sophisticated IMO.

I'm sure the fact that Holden planned to initially redo the V chassis in 2004 or 2005 didn't help either.

GM did look into it (it seems the original idea was to produce Monaro based Camaros and Commodore based Buicks together), but it didn't happen.

About Ste Therese:

It was an old building, but it was a modern assembly facility. When the 4th gen started production in 1993, it was state of the art due partly to a healthy infusion of cash from Quebec & the Canadian Government (about C$300,000,000 in an intrest free loan & tax breaks), so it's not like the plant was operating from the stone age.

The fact is the plant was simply too big for what it was making, and was the poster child for manufacturing overcapacity. GM was going to close the plant down in the late 80s, till Canada & Quebec virtually bribed GM to find a product to keep it open. Though you can argubly fault GM for being shortsighted, after digging around I can say that GM (or Camaro people at GM) did a great job keeping things going as long as they did.

Holden couldn't build them either, as 91_z28_4me pointed out, there is no way on earth Holden can make the number of cars needed for Camaro. Holden needed an absolutely massive expansion to fill the very small order of GTOs Pontiac is importing (there were only 5,000 Monaros planed per year, now Holden is tasked with 23,000 plus of those cars with GTO, and they still aren't up to speed yet!).

With only 30,000 Camaros, a very conservative number, it would be simply impossible.

 

One has to remember that the population of Australia is only about 1/10th that of the U.S., and therefore their market for new cars is similarly smaller. So what is a high volume car in that market is peanuts here.....that's why a 17,000 unit GTO is a massive expansion to a Holden facility.

 

Im not talking about bringing them here from Oz and I dont mean make Monaro's into Camaro's either. Only to bring the chassis itself here. Im sure that GM NA could have designed the Camaro around the V, and Im sure that someone did just in case that situation happend.
I guess my answer rests in the now defunked Ste.T plant and how they couldnt be brought up to a level of production to produce the car.

 

I'm thinking that what GuionM is alluding to is the fact that the V-chasis is not modular, and so the cowl height is fixed. The relationship of the driver and the cowl is to "sit-upright" and so will not have a "camaro feel". So it doesn't matter how you slice and dice with trying to put a "camaro" body on a V-chasis, it will still not feel like a camaro.

It'll most likely going to cost too much to transform the V-chasis to something else that can accomodate the feel of the F-body chasis, especially when the V-chasis would be replaced very soon.

or I could be blowing smoke with my deduction....

 

I think the V chassis would have been a great Camaro if done right. I think a V chassis Camaro would have been a better idea then just letting the Camaro die for X amount of years. Sitting in the GTO, it gives you good hight to see the road, but you dont feel like your sitting in a truck. I think it would have been better then the low slug feel that the Camaro is known for. Between a Camaro, a Buick sedan, and a possible niche ElCamino or even basing the SSR off the V chassis, they could have made over 300k units from Ste.T. I dont know, maybe thats just me.