Right-Hand Drive Camaro on Hold

Plans for a right-hand drive version of the Camaro have been put on hold due to a change of priorities within GM, Bob Lutz, GM's vice chairman, said in an interview with journalists at the 2010 Geneva Auto Show. Basically, the US-based manufacturer intends to focus more on hybrids and electric vehicles and less on alternative version of existing models that would be only addressed to a limited number of buyers.

In other words, countries such as Japan, UK and Australia won't get the Camaro. At least, not now as Lutz only said that plans have been delayed "indefinitely".

"It's been pushed back, perhaps indefinitely," Lutz said, according to motortrend.com. "No matter which car company you work for, there's never enough engineering money, talent and capital to do everything you want to do," said Lutz. "So when we looked at the hybrids that we have to do, and the plug-ins that we have to do, we just had to priority rank it and I couldn't argue with the priorities."

Although GM's intentions to concentrate on a different range of products represented the main reason for the company's change of plans, Lutz also explained that all these countries would only buy low volumes which, in the current context, do not make sense, especially for a company like GM that tries anything to boost sales.

"Unfortunately all of the markets came in with relatively low volume estimates. The UK was low, and...frankly I think Australia could have stepped up to the plate with some more. But when we finally looked at it there weren't enough units to justify after all what is a fairly large investment," he said.