Chevy’s pony car returns better than ever
It was such a long time coming and there was so much hype that I thought there was a possibility of the reborn Camaro not being able to live up to expectations. Not so. First and foremost it is a killer looking car. Now I will qualify that by saying that like the other pony cars that have be retro-resurrected, there is a certain psychographic that gravitates to this market so when I say this car is beautiful, it’s with that group in mind.
While there’s no doubt that without a GTO, Road Runner, GTX, Firebird and the classic Hemi Cuda, just to name a few of the great cars that aren’t in the mix, we’ll never experience the golden era of muscle cars that dominated the scene in the ‘60’s into the early ‘70’s. However it is nice the have the trio of Mustang, Challenger and finally the Camaro, because I doubt very seriously that we’ll see any more go into production. The great thing about the new Camaro is that the final production car is very close to the 2006 concept car and that speaks volumes about the commitment that GM had to make this car an instant classic.
Al Oppenheiser, Chief Vehicle Engineer for the Camaro said it was one of the most challenging designs their die makers ever had to deal with. He was quoted as saying that it took 10 or 12 tries to get the stamping right on the rear quarter panels because the creasing is so aggressive. Boy did it ever pay off because it’s that aggressiveness that adds to the appeal of the car and puts it in a class by itself.
The 2010 Camaro has elements from the Zeta-I Holden platform but it has a shorter wheel base and is stiffer overall so it justifies the Zeta-II designation. It is bigger than the Mustang by a couple of inches in overall length and just a bit wider than the Challenger, the MoPar is actually bigger with the Camaro sitting some 3-inches lower and over 8-inches shorter. When you combine that with 20-inch wheels like my tester had
