Okay Pontiac, you go slap the Firebird name on a 2-seat 4 banger and I'll watch in delight as it gets smoked by the real Firebirds.

 

I can't speak for everyone here, but I wouldn't be surprised to find that every Camaro lover here has the same admiration for the Firebird. At least that's how I feel. Don't anyone turn this into a Firebird vs. Camaro debate becuase it's not nor should it be. Heck, if I had my pick, it'd be a 2002 Trans Am or Formula.

I wouldn't want a Camaro to come back as a 2 seat 4 banger, no matter how fast and agile it was. I feel the same for Firebird. The name has a rich legacy that at the very least equals Camaro, more likely surpasses it in many ways. It deserves and demands a car that stands up to that legacy!!!!

If it were to return I'd submit that the VE, sigma-lite (or whatever it's supposed to be called) is the place for it to be. The real question is differentiating it from a Camaro. It's gotta be a little more upscale with a different power train. This would be a proper Firebird. But there are some major hurdles to do this.....Is the market there? How about overlap with the Camaro? They'd undoubtedly be competing with one another in some way, and unless the market is there to support both then there should only be one. Who knows, maybe the Camaro sales could prove they need a more upsclae car by it's side.

 

I would like to believe this but I don't think it's true.
If GM came to the majority of the people on this board and asked them: "We can only bring back one F-body. Which do you want it to be?" A resounding majority would vote for the Camaro to come back and the Firebird to die.
I would expect that though, as this is a Camaro board.

Pose that question in a Pontiac, Firebird, or T/A board and the answer would probably be the other way around.

Most guys here are like, "yeah, it's sad to see the Firebird go, but oh well, more money for the Camaro. Besides, the Firebird guys will just buy a Camaro now."

And look how many people were upset when the GTO was announced. I know I read more than a few posts of people complaining that the GTO was going to eat up resources that could have been used for the Camaro.

This is a Camaro board and us Firebird guys just have to accept that.

 

HuJ, I'd be less than honest if I didn't say that I have a greater affinity for Camaro than Firebird...eventhough sometimes Firebird was better than Camaro.

I have no illusions that NO Firebird, necessarilly means a better Camaro either. I can think of many instances when Firebird put pressure on Camaro to be better. For example...when Chevy discontinued the Z/28 after 1974, (since according to Chevy...there was OBVIOUSLY no market for such a car), Trans Ams sold at a surprisingly brisk pace. It was because of Trans Am's success, that Chevy revived the Z/28 for late '77. In the 4th gen....the whole SLP connection started with Firebird. I could go on and on.

In fact...I wonder how different....for better or worse....Camaro would have been without Firebird.

You know, I'd like to see a new Firebird....I just don't see it having any future in the next few years as a Camaro clone......NONE. Maybe I'm alittle bit more prepared than some here, to see the Firebird take on a slightly different form...since my Firebird world pretty much went to sleep after 1981. I'd like to see the Firebird name come back...and be successful.

Please don't be mad....but I've been trying to picture in my mind, a G6 with a shaker hood scoop....and a T/A x.x decal on it.

 

Hmmm, a four cylinder two seater Firebird....No Thanks!!!! No matter how many "Firebird" nameplates GM puts on a car like that, it is not and never will be a Firebird to me. I have owned far
too many of them to know the car any other way that what it is (was ).

As far as Firebird owners being willing to accept a Camaro in place of a Firebird, I can only say that I sure wouldn't and I would
bet that a good majority would agree with me. Even though many
of you see these cars as "clones" (yes, they are to an extent), they have totally different personalities. I have owned both to
know that. The Firebird has a totally different feel to it than I got
out of the Z28 that I owned. The first time I sat in the Z, I didn't
feel I was sitting inside a sporty car, can't say that about any of
the Firebirds I have owned. Pontiac has always positioned their
version of the F-body as the more upscale car and I believed it
showed. That is why those of us who prefer the Firebird line, can't feel the same way about the Camaro. No offense to the Camaro, there are many Camaros that I would like to own. My
preference is for the Firebird though and always will be. Last year in August when the F-bodys were discontinued, I sent an
e-mail to Pontiac expressing my disappointment. Their answer
was to me was that they had the new car for me......the new GTO. Unfortunately for them, it isn't a Firebird either. I have seen
the new GTO in person and think it is a great car, but it can't replace any of my Firebirds either. I don't think Pontiac understands that.

 

1) I think that there's the one problem. Most people here feel that the Firebird is a clone of the Camaro. That the Firebird rides on the coat tails of the the Camaro. The Firebird is not a "clone" of the Camaro. They are sisters, or stablemates. No different than the Monte and GP, or the Bonne and LeSabre, etc.
The Firebird probably sold to a differnt demographic than the Camaro did. I'd like to see GM's market research on the two cars. Red could probably shed some light here.

2) A G6 with a shaker hood and T/A decals? That's blasphemy!! What would the decal say, "T/A 3.5"? V-6? More than two doors? FWD or AWD? Please. That is NOT a T/A. The T/A is a pony/muscle car. The G6 is not, and never will be, a Trans Am.

3) I'm not mad. I'm just frustrated and disappointed at some of the folks here on the board. We are all performance vehicle enthusiasts and for some here just to casually dismiss the Firebird is dissheartening. The Firebird and Trans Am are probably some of the biggest models in GM history. What they have contributed to the performance car market over the years is awesome. The nameplates do not deserved to be dismissed, mis-treated, water downed, or re-used on a vehicle that does not deserve it.

Either bring the nameplates back on worthy cars or just retire them.

 

Okay...I didn't wanna have to do this. Below are the Camaro (left)and Firebird (right) production numbers. If I follow your train of thought, you claim that the Firebird is not a clone of the Camaro...but a seperate model line with a distinct audience. Now as the below numbers show, the Firebird has not outsold the Camaro ever in a model year...though the margine varies by year. The average for the last 20 years is that very roughly that the Firebird sells 60% of the Camaro. Even in it's 70's heyday the Firebird was outsold by quite possibly one of the ugliest Camaros ever. Now I understand that Firebirds have always costed more and such...however, one thing the 4th Gen thought GM is that even if they invest more money in the Firebird than Camaro...which they did with the tooling on the 98+ models....sales don't really increase. Imagine if GM used that money on the Camaro...sure maybe Firebird guys wouldn't have switched...but I am willing to be if the $$ were used right Chevy could have found new Camaro buyers elsewhere.

That is what GM is doing now. They are hedging they can sell 100,000+ 2007 Camaros on the cars own merit..(not even really targeting old Firebird buyers). Which is much more financially attractive than selling say 70,000 2007 Camaros and 40-50,000 2007 Firebirds. Like it or not a Camaro will loose sales with a Firebird around.



Could not find newer Firebird numbers.
Production Numbers:
1967--220,906 82,560
1968-235,151 107,112
1969--243,105 87,011

1970--124,899 48739
1971--114,643 53124
1972--72,354 52972
1973--96,576 46313
1974--151,007 73729
1975--145,789 84063
1976--182,959 110775
1977--218,853 155736
1978--272,631 187285
1979--282,571 211454
1980--152,005 107340
1981--126,139 70899

1982--183,368 116,362
1983--154,381 74,884
1984--261,586 128,304
1985--180,018 95,880
1986--192,219 110,463
1987--137,760 88,587
1988--92,275 62,445
1989--95,489 64,404
1990--77,599 20,532
1991--54,383 30,320
1992--56,909

1993--68,773 14,112
1994--116,592 47,117
1995--97,525 51,059
1996--66,866 30,982
1997--55,973 30,754
1998--48,490 32,157
1999--42,098
2000--45,417
2001--29,209
2002--42,098

 

Point is taken, but remember that any Chevrolet is going to outsell any Pontiac of similar style, market, and price... if for no other reason but the larger Chevy dealership infrastructure...

If you tack that logic on to every situation, you might as well just shut down every GM division except for Chevrolet and call it a day.

 

No...Chevy models out selling Pontiac's is fine....when you are talking in terms of volume. Engineering a G6 along with the Malibu make sense because they both appeal to people different ends of the spectrum and the midsized sedan market is huge. GM thinks they can sell 500,000 G6's and Malibus.

The best way to explain it is....

There are plenty of people who have owned both Camaro's and Firebird's, myself included. Now...how many people have owned both a Malibu and a Grand Am or a Bonneville and Park Avenue...not nearly the ratio.

The business sense is that you only invest in redundent brands/modelwhen there is a signifigant market share to be gained that you current brand would not have. Saturn is an example...hardly any Saturn buyers would be caught dead in another GM show room.

GM has no means been good at brand management in the past...but I think they are working hard to reduce redunencey like the old Firebird and Camaro used to be. The reason Camaro will stay in the pony car area is because it is the stronger brand with the larger captive audience.

One think being missed is that alot of 4th gen Firebird guys are really embracing the GTO. A large percentage of NewAgeGTO's members with orders for GTO's and just members in general are 4th Gen Firebird owners...many more than Camaro owners....which tells me three things...

1. The GTO is a great car.
2. Firebird owners have accepted the cars fate for the most part
as a pony car and moved on.
3. If the 4th gen Firebird had to compete in the same lineup with the GTO...think would have been much worse sales wise for it. The fact that Firebird owners are so quick to move to the GTO is plenty to make GM weary of making a new one.

 

I've gotten the impression over the years that GM management lost confidence with the GM ponycar formula. For whatever reason many became convinced that it couldn't work or was a waste of time. Now, when a GM ponycar does come back it's going to have to re-validate itself. Remember the scene in Office Space where the employees were re-interviewed for their jobs? Yeah, something like that.

To this end the proponents of a GM pony car want to go with something that's a safer bet. They want to downplay complexity and risks. Thus only one car comes back right now. Given that....it's not a leap of faith to believe they'd go for a Camaro model over just Firebird. It has consistently dominated Firebird in sales in a market where sales volume has rightly been questioned.

How the market reacts will be a deciding factor in whether to bring back the Bird. It's frustrating and upseting, but when the dust settles I'd rather see one back than none....much better both, but that'll take some time.

 

OK, I am willing to go along with a great portion of this... some sticking points are that I don't think tthe majority of GTO owners will be happy ex-Firebird owners, and some othe rminor points...

But, even if I accept all of this... I still can't justify the use of the Firebird name on either the Solstice or (especially) the G6. It doesn't work, and it doesn't fit either of those car's respective missions.

 

Very true counterpoint.

I think a better way of looking at this is that the market is weak in this area. The choice is offering 2 cars that are pretty identical, or breaking them off and sending one in a different direction.

HuJass', I don't think you're aware that your own analogy proved the opposite point. The Monte Carlo and Grand Prix are sisters, true. Yet the market for them shrank. The Grand Prix coupe got the axe, and the Monte Carlo continued. The GP is being replaced with the GTO. The exact same thing is happening with the F-body. Camaro is continuing, and it seems at the moment Solstice may very well end up becoming the Firebird. At the very least, it will occupy Firebird's spot.

As for potential 5th gen Firebird buyers not going to a 5th gen Camaro, I think that's not entirely true. Sure, there are hard core Trans Am-type people out there who are fiercely loyal, like it or not, the bulk if not all other potential customers will move to other vehicles. Most likely a Camaro.

But naming vehicles and creating modest skin changes is easy, and like the 1st gen Firebird and the front wheel drive "89 Mustang" proved, it's never too late to change your mind & change direction.

 

I doubt that the Solstice would be marketed as a "economy" car like the Fiero was at first. It needs to be marketed as an entry level sports car from the beginning.

An AWD G6 coupe called Firebird would raise hell just like the Solstice Firebird is. Anything that the Firebird name is applied to that isn't a RWD V8 2+2 coupe will meet some resentment.

 

I hope that they don't call the solstice the firebird. Solstice is a great name. The firebird name just doesn't seem to fit the solstice.

 

The name Solstice seems to be trademaked alot..but I didn't look to see if GM owns one..



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