guionM

This was written by Josh, one of the moderators at Cheers & Gears, and a great source of info.

This info much along the same lines of what I've been told about GM yanking the funding of the 5th gen, and the timing. Enjoy.

http://www.cheersandgears.com/forums...showtopic=5880

smackkk

I cant find the posts comparing the sales of Mustangs vs Fbody's, but isnt 97 around the time Mustang started slowly outselling the Fbody. If I rememeber right, 4th gen Fbodies actually sold more than Mustangs a few of the years before this decision.

IntimidatorSS

Wasn't the early 4 gens selling fairly well? Also was the cut of money going into the F-Body's cause the sudden drop in sales. From what I have gathered the F-Bodies were selling well til around 96-97and sales then just died from there am I correct cause I need a little history lesson on this. But it's a shame these Camaro's didn't sell cause I think they were some beautiful cars.

guionM

Here ya go:
http://web.camaross.com/forums/showt...g+camaro+sales

From 1995 on, Mustang outsold both the Camaro & Firebird combined.

Camaros took a horrendous sales hit in 1996, and again in 1998 when it was restyled & went into a freefall. .

IntimidatorSS

Depending on the market what would be a good selling number for Camaros in the future? Would 100,000 be enough to satisfy GM? I don't know how the market would be for RWD coupes in the future so I don't wanna make a crazy guess saying they will be 400,000 sales in 2008.

Is the Mustang selling like 150,000-200,000 a year now since the Camaro isn't aroudn to take up some of the sales? I just hope that the market for a Camaro around 2008 is pretty popular so we can see some good sales from these cars.

smackkk

Thanks for the charts GuionM. Actually, it looks like Camaro/Firebird outsold Mustang in 1997 by about 25,000 cars. Somebody at GM must have really disliked these cars to decide to kill them off when they were going toe to toe with Mustangs in sales up to that time.

97: 100,254/ 95,812(30,754)

"Research as far as design elements, heritage and the like were all underway. "

Any chance we will ever see what direction this car was headed. I wonder if the new 5th gen has any styling cues/direction related to the aborted 5th gen.

guionM

1. GM didn't really have a chassis for the Camaro. The Holden V-car & the Cadillac "Sigma" was considered but rejected mainly because of cost, the collapse of the coupe market, and a group running GM that came from outside the car industry who didn't really understand the use of a Camaro in a showroom that had the Corvette already and saw no problem with all cars being cheap, easy to make FWD chassis (except Cadillac and the forementioned Corvette).


2. You saw the direction GM was headed with the new Camaro before it was pulled. Look up the Chevy Nomad Concept. Not the new Kappa-based one, the one from the late 90s based on a........Camaro chassis!


For you old timers here, remember how Red & others said that advertizing wouldn't have saved the Camaro, and how we (me included) though these guys must have had their brains zapped by aliens? Well, there happens to be a element of truth to their claim.

The coupe market imploded in the late 90s, and the biggest victims were low-slung sports coupes. Monte Carlo heald steady & Mustang actually started growing in a market that was collasping. When you look at the overall coupe market at the time, though the F-bodies combined were the 2nd best selling sports coupe, all other coupes (that were smaller and just as "confined") fell even worse.

Big difference was they were based off FWD sedan chassis, and could still be profitable. F-bodies, on the other hand, had to be completely re-engineered (their chassis was obsolete). The numbers weren't worth it to the old-guard GM.

There is a laundry list of other items that doomed the F-body that is simply mind boggling (makes you wonder why the cars lasted as long as they did ). Though it seems people had it in for Camaro (which is true), any other car wouldn't have made it as far as Camaro did before being killed.

Though the bad guys made things worse, the 4th gen was a dead duck years before it died.

WERM

Funny thing was...despite the abysmal build quality, sub-par reliability, questionable front end styling revision, lack of promotion and general user-unfriendliness, the car kept selling for FIVE MORE YEARS before federal regulations killed it (essentially). I can't think of any other car that could have lasted so long under similar circumstances.

I think that says a lot for the loyalty of GM fans, the market desire for AFFORDABLE performance and the overall concept of the car and its heritage.

PacerX

Back in the dark ages, I was the design engineer for the parking brake that would have been implemented for the F5. The car was based on GMX-320 (Cadillac CTS), had an independant rear end, two doors and would have actually been pretty neat.

It would have stood more upright, Mustang-like, and would have been dimensionally smaller on a larger wheelbase - much like the exterior dimension of the Corvette have diminshed, but the wheels have moved out to the corners.

A strong case could be made that the GMX-320 was not the appropriate platform for a Camaro, but any Camaro would be better than what happened in the end.

The elements are pretty simple:
Big V8 available.
2+2.
2 doors.
Long, low, wide.
Coupe, convertible and T-tops.

Note that last. A Camaro without T-tops is like fishing without a hook. Too much money to be made there to ignore them, and if a convertible is in the offing, there is no sense in not offering them - they're free money. The required structural work for the convertible will nail down any rigidity issues that the T-tops would bring.

This is an argument I just don't get. If we can make a convertible on a platform that results in no structure at all being provided by the roof, we sure as heck can make T-tops. As a matter of fact, I can show PRECISELY how to do it.

Bob Cosby

With the exception of the LS1 itself, the biggest thing I miss about the 99 T/A I had is T-tops. I love em, wish the Mustang had em, and hope the next F-body does have em.

PacerX

That's the polling data and marketing information that GM needs. The lack of t-tops would be a huge negative both in the marketing of the car and monetarily.

Z284ever

Do you believe that Zeta is a more appropriate platform than Sigma?

PacerX

Yes.

The "thermal event separator" (commonly known as the "firewall") was a big issue on Sigma in that it was too tall and stood the car up too much. With Zeta the issue can be avoided.... somewhat. Honestly, Kappa might even be a better choice since the resemblance to the other cars on the platform (Solstice etc...) is probably stronger that that with Zeta (a big 4-door sedan and a truly midsize car like GTO that can afford to be more upright).

But, I live in the peanut gallery and am not privvy to what the actual decision making process would truly be. Kappa could probably nestle in an LSx family motor due to the resemblance to Corvette. Kappa, to me, truly looks like a miniature Corvette chassis, which leads me back to the original Kappa paradigm that I posted months ago:

If it will fit an I4 and a V6 on the same platform, it'll fit a V8 - especially if the V6 is an OHC design. You may run into issues with having to use a much larger transmission and rear end due to the much higher torque output of the V8, but the engine compartment itself should be fine. Unfortunately, the rest of the car might not be wide enough to fit the dimensions that a 2+2 Camaro would need.

That being said, the F1 cars were warmed-over Novas (Red might disagree with me here, but the whole front subframe/unibody rear idea was a unique solution in the Novas of the time - Chevelles had full frames and were MUCH bigger and heavier cars). Which means the precendent exists for using a small car to build a Camaro off of. Novas were considered small cars at the time, and remainded so until the advent of the Vega/Monza/Chevette later on.

This all might be nonsense now, I honestly don't know where GM is or is not in decision making process.

guionM

Blowing the cover there, huh?

Check your e-mail (not PM) about 10 minutes from now.

Josh452

Hey! Thanks for posting this here guionM. I've gotten a few emails about this from some people in the know that say the dates are pretty well spot on as far as financing goes. I already knew that, but its better to get more confirmation. It's good to have for when people try to discredit your work, or the site you work with

Needless to say, if people do their homework and research, its pretty obvious why the Camaro was put on hiatus. Now, we have to do our part and let our voices be heard to bring the name back.