jg95z28

I will not buy anything with less than 500HP... regardless of the weight.

Besides.. 3,800 lbs is not overly heavy for a modern musclecar designed to meet today's safety standards.

10 years from now when the Camaro weighs 4,500 lbs because of safety regulations you people will be bitching that its too heavy and crying for a lighter 3,800 lb car even though the 4,500 lb version puts out 650 hp. Attention... this is not 1985. Its the 21st century folks and heavier cars are here to stay. Deal with it.

Z28Wilson

Is Camaro a pony car or a muscle car?

Words like "not overly heavy" imply "just good enough", and I don't know about you but I'm tired of GM striving for "just good enough." This is not the case with all of their efforts mind you, but that mentality still shows up in some places.

As Charlie said, you can simply throw more horsepower at the weight problem, but for components to survive those stresses they in turn need to get stronger and heavier...and so the cycle goes. It's a shame John Colleti left Ford when he did. As a GM guy, you can say what you want about the man (pompous, etc.) but he had the right ideas about potentially capping horsepower while scaling back on weight.

By the way, if there are no advancements in cheaper, lighter materials 10 years from now so that Camaro doesn't have to weigh 4,500 pounds, it will be a sad day no matter how much power you throw at it.

Z284ever

I don't agree at all.

If we used 1985 technology, materials and methods...a 2009 Camaro would certainly weigh 4,500 lbs, maybe more.

The point is that safety standards and consumer content requirements keep pushing weight up, and improved technology and materials keep pushing it down.

km9v

My bad, I transposed the results. You are correct. I want to change my vote.

Z/28lover

Hmmm...

FbodFather and ChrisFrez both chose the 3800 lbs option.

I wonder if they are trying to tell us something.

jg95z28

But at a price. I'm sure GM could build a sub 3000 lb Camaro if they wanted to push the technology envalope. But all that would do is drive up the price of the car. The whole basis of Chevrolet has always been affordable performance and Camaro represents that better than any other Chevrolet model, including Corvette. There comes a time when you need to sacrifice some weight savings in order to keep the costs down.

However this doesn't mean you don't offer premium bolt-ons that could be owner/dealer options which would off those weight-saving benefits to those who choose to go that route.

jg95z28

You can have cheaper.
You can have lighter.
Choose one.

Seriously, by lighter I believe you mean lighter and just as strong or stronger, and not just some cheap flimsy replacement just to be lighter. If all you want is a cheap and light Camaro, heck build it in a third world country where safety isn't an issue.

Z28Wilson

No, I mean cheaper and lighter. It's called technological advancement.

As an illustration, a 60's GTO could weigh up to 3800 pounds, or more. Today's GTO weighs 37xx pounds, with all the modern conveniences and safety structures/equipment.

Heck, consider what a personal computer cost in the 1980's with its miniscule computing power compared to what PCs can do today and their price. It's unbelievable that anyone would pay thousands of dollars for a PC with 128 KB of RAM, but they did!

In no way is technology/price a linear curve.

Z284ever

Electronic components are smaller, lighter, cheaper and more reliable than they were 20 years ago. Same with airbags. There have been - and will continue to be, advancements in metallurgy. Steel can affordably be made much lighter and stronger. Aluminum, which was considered true exotica 20 years ago is now commonplace, even on the cheapest cars. Titanium and magnesium, which were considered completely unaffordable just afew years ago, are becoming cheaper due to new technology and techniques in manufacturing and being used more and more in the auto industry.

Technology marches on. Lighter, stronger, more reliable and cheaper.

BigDarknFast

Ehh... not quite. More like "Technology marches on. Stronger, more reliable, and MORE FEATURES..." according to NHTSA curb weight trends since 1978. Look at Table II-4 in http://www.nhtsa.gov/cars/rules/CAFE...000/index.html . It shows curb weights for US passenger cars being remarkably static since then, albeit slightly increasing since 1981. So where's the beef on all this wunnerful transparent aluminum and such?

Just as an example... remember when it was a big decision, whether to order your new car with A/C? It's just about universally standard now.

My point being, MOST buyers today aren't wringing their hands over that 100 lb of curb weight; they wring their hands about MP3-compatible stereo options, side curtain airbags, stability control, and so on.

Z28Wilson

Understood. But the lighter, cheaper materials being developed will still offset the new features. You showed yourself that curb weights have been more or less static over the last 2 decades.

I keep thinking about my GTO example. The modern car even has a heavy IRS, and still weighs about the same or less as those old Goats.

I accept toughening crash standards, more features, and all that. But to me, the next Camaro does not need to be 400-500 pounds heavier, IRS or not, when the car is physically smaller than the one it replaces and has 7 years of material advances behind it. Then again, I ain't an injuneer.

jg95z28

Bingo! Today we are adding more and more gadgets and components to our vehicles. You'd be hard pressed to find a vehicle today without A/C, XM radio, an iPod jack, subwoofers, CD-changers, GPS navigation, etc. Sure that old AM radio in my 67 Camaro weighed 10 lbs.... but it came with one speaker.

Just because technology advances doesn't equate to cost and weight savings. Something has to drive those technological advances, and that is money. Do you think engineers work for free just for the sake of advancing technology? Hell I'm passionate about what I do, but that doesn't mean I'd work for free, or that my company wouldn't charge your company to design it. Keeping things static actually saves money because new process do not have to be tried and tested before implementation. For every successful new design, hundreds if not thousands of ideas will have failed, that all costs money.

Secondly you simply cannot compare the advancement of computer technology to the automotive industry. Moore's law says that processing speed doubles every 18 months. Is anyone seriously suggesting that the automotive industry can come anywhere close to that? Cars today are made of steel, just as cars were made 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago. Where are the weight savings on technological advances in steel manufacturing? They're insignificant. And while the electronics inside vehicles have made huge advances and have been miniturized over the decades, the amount of electronics and their complexity have grown astronomically. Heck, just the additional wiring required by all the computers, gagets, and gizmos adds an incredible amount of weight. Sure you could lighten the weight considerbly by moving to fiberoptic, but guess what... you wouldn't want to pay the extra cost required.

Several of you are making a rationalization of as technology advances things get simpler, cheap and lighter. Where is your basis for this? Where are your facts supporting this? Sure plastics have lightened some parts up considerbly. But at some point you need to support that plastic with strength and that for the most part takes steel which adds weight back in. Oh sure, you could replace some steel components with aluminum or carbon fiber, but guess what? That adds cost into the equation. So now you're stuck with a decision.

Do you want it cheap, or do you and to save weight? You simply can't have it both ways. To suggest otherwise is pointless without facts supporting it.

jg95z28

However there are 100x more components now than 20 years ago. That adds more weight that technoloical advances take out.
So are you suggesting its now cheaper to manufacture panels and forms out of aluminum, titanium and magnesium than it is to stamp steel? Seriously?
Again... lighter? Yes. Stronger? Yes. More reliable? Yes. Cheaper? That's relative. Cheaper than the same process 20 years ago? No. Labor and materials costs have risen considerably. Cheaper because of newer manufacturing techniques? Possibly. Cheaper because its a new idea, process or implementation? That depends. However most likely that if its a lighter, stronger and more reliable material, its going to cost you more than its old steel counterpart. The technologies that are both cheaper and lighter are not a significant amount of weigh in the overall make-up of an automobile.

jg95z28

So now there's such a thing as "free" technology?

You're obviously not an engineer, are you?

Z28Wilson

Ugh. My only point was, as materials and techniques become more common place in the market, cost goes down.

Heck, I honestly think the all-aluminum frame the current Corvette Z06 uses, while expensive today, will be quite commonplace, say, 10-15 years from now. Maybe the hydroforming process gets simple and cost-effective enough that we could see an aluminum-framed Z28?

Like Charlie said, if there were absolutely no advancements in material manufacturing or structural design techniques, we'd already have your theoretical 4,500 pound Camaro. The 2002 Camaro Z28 packed a lot more features and whiz-bang tech stuff in it than the 1982 Camaro. Weight gain was minimal, even in the face of ever-toughening safety standards to boot. So, how did they do that? I've yet to see you address any of this.