How long will GM want to produce it?

Discuss.

 

That depends, is G8 production still coming to the US? is Buick North America getting a Zeta? Is the STS/DTS replacement still going to be a Zeta?

...also when does the Alpha Chevy sedan go into production? I'd like to see Camaro eventually move to Alpha.

 

It probably depends on how well the Camaro sells, but I doubt it will sell nearly enough to help bring in the volume that Zeta was originally planned with? Does this mean that the 5th gen maybe a relatively short lived generation of Camaro?

 

That's the $64,000 question. And will GM want to continue to invest in it's present form as CAFE puts the heat on?

 

Are there any 4 door Zeta projects?

I'm not big on "coming soon, to a NA market near you" stuff, so?

Cause if there is, GM take one of those and refit it for gov/police duty. And do it right by choosing this design to refit into police cars, not just sell the one kind under a special duty RPO.

 

They seem to be dropping like flies.........

 

Isn't it a safe bet that a 6th gen Camaro could be the last vehicle designed for Alpha (I'm basing that on perceived volumes). So even if Alpha comes sooner, Camaro may or probably will not.

Not to sound alarmist or overly pressimistic, but...there seems to be a growing possiblity that the 5th will languish like the 4th gens. After their intorduction there will be virtually no improvements or development.

That's not going to help the brand at all, which already suffers from a cheap (as opposed to inexpensive) reputation.

 

Just long enough to get a plant tooled up for the sixth gen Alpha based version. I hope.

 

Good point Charlie.
I still dont see why GM could not produce a low volume large RWD Chevy sedan.
If Camaro is the only Zeta car, then I forsee that if Camaro fails, it will be cut off for good. Zeta will slowly just turn into another fbody, specific for only ONE car, Camaro. Without other vehicles to help spread costs and engineering out, Camaro will have to do well to keep GM interested in the car.
That scares me. The hopes and dreams of Zeta all fall on the Camaro, and even if it does well, Zeta will die and Camaro could live on in the Alpha platform come 6th gens. I guess all that talk of Alpha being 4/6cyl only is gunna change soon, and then Alpha will become big and heavy, and what we will have is an advanced Zeta. Sounds like we are gunna find ourselves in a giant circle in about 5 years or so.

 

I expect there's still a chance we'll see crossovers for Buick and Cadillac on Zeta-NA, or at least a modified version of it.

 

As one of this site's avowed retro haters and overweight car haters, I've said from early on that the F5's lifespan will likely be shorter than most would hope. And this was before 35mpg CAFE and the reality of $3+ gasoline set in. And before the interior was shown. Add in the fact that the Camaro is already yesterday's news to so many people because of its lengthy public gestation, and things aren't looking great IMO. Of course there will be the huge initial demand from the first-on-the-block types and diehard GM performance folks (of which I consider myself one). We had that with the fourth gens too.

But honestly, after a couple years, I don't see what's going to sustain demand. The weight and fuel economy are largely unchangeable at that point. Perhaps a thorough restyle could revive interest assuming the hard points would allow it to look more modern, but that's probably more costly than GM would care to invest. Even with a factory mate, I could see it dying after 5-6 years.

 

There is MUCH less of a weight penalty when stretching a smaller platform to make a bigger car than there is when trying to shrink a larger platform to make a smaller car. The engineers can explain why this is.

Ever wonder why the 350Z is as heavy as it is (approx 3400 lbs) despite it's relatively tidy size and lack of big horsepower? It was made from a larger platform.

This has been the basis for concerns regarding the new Camaro's weight ever since we learned what platform it was to be based on.

 

Woah woah WOAH are there some huge assumptions here.

Camaro won't get any investment? It'll wind up like the 4th Gen? Killed after 5 or 6 years?

If Scott saw this thread it would drive him to start smoking again.

I think Camaro's future is mapped pretty closely with Mustang's. I don't see anyone worried about how CAFE will kill Ford's pony car, and it's almost in the same boat with Camaro....on a bit of a unique North American RWD platform. You'd certainly think that Chevrolet learned from their transgressions in the later years of the 4th Gen, but then again, at that point they knew the car was a lame duck anyway.

 

Hmm...I don't think that's likely with the TE platform already in place.

 

Solstice won't be on Alpha, it's moving to the Corvette/XLR architecture in 2011. So, certainly seems like Camaro can move to Alpha once Zeta production has ran its course.