Introduced in 1966 for the 1967 model year, the Camaro left us for a brief period between the fourth and fifth generations. General Motors discontinued the F-body model over the deteriorating sports car market and the increasing preference for utility vehicles, but nevertheless, the pony car made a glorious comeback on the Zeta rear-drive architecture.
Sales were pretty good initially, topping 88,249 units in 2011. But ever since 2014, it’s been downhill for the Ford Mustang’s biggest nemesis. The 2020 sales volume is the worst in recent memory, tallying 29,775 units in the United States while the S550 ‘Stang ended the year with 61,090 deliveries.
Why is that? In addition to chip shortage-related production issues, we have to remember the Camaro features very poor visibility for lane changing, inadequate cabin space and storage, and a firm-ish ride with plenty of road noise getting inside. What’s more, the pony car has already lost the muscle wars against the 6.2-liter Hellcat engine and the 5.2-liter Predator engine.
Whatever the reasoning, General Motors doesn’t intend to level up beyond the 6.2-liter mill of the ZL1 and ZL1 with the 1LE extreme track performance package. 650 horsepower and 650 pound-feet (881 Nm) of torque is more than plenty for most people, but it’s not good enough to fend off the likes of the Shelby GT500 and the Demon-inspired Super Stock.
Given these circumstances, longtime Camaro chief engineer Al Oppenheiser has been reassigned to the AV/EV organization within General Motors and the future of the Camaro remains uncertain. There are plenty of unverified reports alleging the bitter end of the pony car, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case. There is also talk of a four-door sports sedan with all-electric propulsion, which brings us to the featured design study.
Penned by SRK Designs, the rendering is basically a mashup of the current-generation Camaro with the Malibu sedan. The stylistic touches of the sidelinedon’t help with the already profane transition from a coupe to a four-door sedan, and there’s another issue with the more practical body style.
Even if GM were to design a prettier sedan, have you glanced over the evolution of sales volumes for this body style in the past few years? That’s clearly a terrible idea from a business standpoint. As much as I hate to admit it, the Corvette-styled and Corvette-branded electric SUV teased at the Barclays 2020 Global Automotive Conference makes a lot more sense.
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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