Interesting. The car was certainly a stripper but I bet that huge DOHC 5.4 and assorted race hardware added all the weight. I wouldn't say it weighed "too much" though.

 

The production car will be abit longer than that.

And I agree, I think a tidier package would be more successful. Unfortunately, Zeta is only so flexible.

 

2007 Impala
Curb Weight - 3555
Wheelbase (in.) - 110.50
Length (in.) - 200.40
Width (in.) - 72.90
Height (in.) - 58.70

2002 Camaro
Curb Weight - 3380
Wheelbase (in.) - 101.10
Length (in.) - 193.50
Width (in.) - 74.10
Height (in.) - 51.20

the only dimension where the camaro is bigger is width.

how is it that a 4th gen camaro seems bigger than a current impala?

 

Concur completely on the IRON 5.4 and other stuff.

Whether it weighed to much is a matter of opinion, of course.

Bob

 

Note I said "seems"?

Pull along side a newer Impala in your 4th gen and tell me it doesn't feel like you're in a bigger car. (At least it did when I was along side a 2004 Impala.)

I don't get the same feeling when I pull up next to a 67 Impala in my 67 Camaro.

 

"The LS7 is part number 17802397 and will literally drop into the engine compartment of any 1982-2004 Camaro — or for that matter, any small-block-powered Camaro back to 1967. You can even use the same motor mounts."

Im sure it will fit easy as pie in my '93 and my '03 all I have to do now is come up with money for an entirely new drivetrain!

Good find on the article though!

 

How can you take arbitrary lengths for cars and judge their prospects for success based on them?

Do people outside of the hardcore enthusiast community consider flat-out length as a deal maker or breaker? Have you noticed that cars have gotten progressively larger over the years? Have you noticed how "big" Mustang is and how it has gotten along just fine?

Do you even realize that your "pulled out your backside" 14' mark would make the Camaro shorter than a 2007 Honda Civic?

The paranoia over size here has become ridiculous. I've never seen such wild expectations for a car in my life. So you want a Camaro the length of a go-kart that seats 4 comfortably, handles 500+ HP and oh yeah, must come in at less than $30,000. Got it.

 

lol.. 14' is pretty ridculous.. even the cobalt is 15' and less than 3000lbs for the coupe... and that's considered a compact car

 

Yep, and what we're talking about here in the Camaro concept is a car that's 15'6".....a mere 6" longer than the Cobalt SS/SC Coupe. A half foot over today's typical compact car is suddenly much too big?

 

Cobalts certainly seem too big to call a compact, at least to me...It is a midsize, IMO. Just massive for what it's meant to be. It might be the proportions or something, but the comparo between cobalt and 5th gen sizes does nothing to ease my mind.

 

It's not about "easing your mind", it's about designing a car that is big enough for it's intended purpose and making it appeal to a broad market base.
Clyde

 

Would you rather me point to a Toyota Corolla at 178"?

 

The whole idea that a Cobalt is a small car is a grotesque illusion. Moreover the new Mustang is large car also. It is selling well, but recently sales have been falling off. Mustang is an interesting example though, since the best selling Mustangs were the 1964-1966 model and the later Foxbody, NOT coincidentally also the smallest.

Funny you should point out the Honda Civic also, because it really is the modern incarnation of a mid-sized car. If you're trying to insinuate that it is a small car, take a better look at the market. Toyota Yaris is a small car, the Civic is not. The Pontiac Wave and the Chevrolet Optra are small cars, the Cobalt is not no matter what GM says. Honda and Toyota have upsized their lineups and their large cars are Camry and Accord, once considered mid-sized.

I haven't compared the numbers, but I think the Camaro will be around the same size as the Camry, the modern incarnation of a large family car. Sadly, the Impala is likely to be even bigger. Will they sell? I'm betting not as much as GM will like. Take a look at the Ford 500 and its dismal sales. If you look over the internet there's a common theme about the new Camaro: people suspect it will be too big and too heavy. It's not like GM wasn't warned on this site and many others about going big, but they dismissed the criticism. Mr. Wagner I suspect was behind this, judging from recent statements. But we'll just see what happens after the Camaro has been on sale for awhile. Maybe I have it all wrong. But I doubt it. I remember what people liked about the first gen in the 1960s and 70s - it was small and compact looking and nicely styled and it had a powerful V8. The new Camaro will have the V8, nice styling, but it will certainly not be small and compact.

 

The issue here is that the donor Zeta architecture can be made no smaller than GTO sized. I agree that the current Mustang is too large. Unfortunately, the Camaro will be slightly larger than that.

 

*sigh*

An interesting observation, though I would note that the 3rd Gen Camaro did very will in the marketplace -- and was certainly no small fry. 2nd Gen Camaros got notably larger than their 1st Gen predecessors, yet were the most successful in the brand's history. And this was, at one point, in the middle of a gas crisis in this country that made today's $3/gallon no sweat. This pretty much tells me that you can't draw conclusions about a car's success based on something so arbitrary as "length".

That may very well be true, but the public's perception is far different. Ask 50 people on the street what type of car the Civic is and I doubt you'll have more than 5 of them say "mid-size." Honda's midsize car is the Accord because it has been marketed that way. Furthermore, Civic outsells Fit many times over. Again, brushing aside the assertion that people want smaller cars. People don't even want "compacts" that are only 14' long!

EDIT: I just looked up Yaris' dimensions. It is just over 169" in length, making it just over 14'. Am I understanding you right? You're saying the Camaro needs to be shorter than a freaking Yaris? "I introduce to you the new 2009 Camaro clown car!" You're going to build a 4-seat Camaro that is a foot smaller than your 2-seat performance flagship, Corvette? Get real!

I want Camaro to be the best it can be as well, but man, it's getting a bit rediculous. Camaro has got to have some "street presence". My guess is that if it was smaller than a Honda Civic and had an even more worthless backseat than the '82-'02 cars we'd have a whole new round of b*tch-festing.

How'd we even get to this point here? It's just a thread with a cool article!