agreed... the car does look better with no 1/4 windows in sight.

Seeing over the back of my shoulder to an area you should be looking in a side mirror to see is pointless. Over 8 years driving my 4th gen vert, over 150,000 miles in some of the worst traffic in the nation and I have never needed to see such a spot, it's just not functional.

...which I don't.

 

Irrelevant; Z28's will still leave SS's in their respective dust.

 

True. What I meant was that if they offer the Z28 in a convertible, it is not longer as difficult a decision for me.

 

Fixed it.

Less windows, motors, switches = less cost, less weight, less maintainence, less warranty issues= happier buyers.

Besides, it looks damn better as well... more agressive... they could even trail the window back an inch or so at the top line before heading down...

The remaining sliver of window becomes the same hard plaque used in 4th gen tops and folds away with the top.

 

Gotcha.

 

I dont see the benefit of trying to twist my words. Its a thin weather stripping which is in no way the width of B Pillar. In addition to that if its in your way you can roll it down for the vert. Also I guess I missunderstood you. I thought you wanted one long glass rather than two. That is not possible. The 1/4 glass is in the 1/4 panel. The alternative would be to be looking at the rag top rather than through the 1/4 glass behind the door. Youd rather it be rag top behind the doors Id much perfer the 1/4 glass thats fine.

and no I dont think it looks better at all without the 1/4 roll down windows.

I owned a 4th gen(98) as well which I thought left alot to be desired. The tiny mirrors you mention I never liked either. The roll down 1/4 windows in my 69 were functional. Just because you dont see yourself rolling them down, or looking past the B Pillar as I have doesnt mean it doesnt function. If that were the case I would consider the mirrors of the 4th gen non functional. But then Id be exagerating just as much. Having said that, to me the windows are more of a crusing thing that I like as well as the look.

Nothing wrong with that...

 

to each their own. I wouldnt have thought anyone would intentionally do that. Just pick up a can of flat black spray paint and your good

 

Can you say "side vision required to drive"???

 

These should do the trick....

 

Fixed nothing that's much worse. The blind spot just got much larger and that's not safe either. If you keep it that way you might as well add some dents to the rear quarter panels as some of our lest talented or experienced 5th Gen buyers will end up loosing sight of hazards lurking back there. You know those first time Camaro buyers that GM really wants and needs to sell this car to.

Your basing most of your complaint on the window motors and them failing. Well there are plenty af vehicles out there with power 1/4 rear windows and they don't suffer the plague the 4th Gen F-body has. So it is possible to do it right and I would think GM knows that and components have improved just like many other aspects of vehicle engineering have improved in the last 16-18 years since the 4th gen was developed.

 

Well said, I was just going to type the same sort of thing.

 

Lets don't go off the deep end here. There are plenty of trucks and nearly any "supercar" which have even less "post-driver" sight. This is what mirrors are for, and as a rule, drivers rarely drive in reverse more than forward. It's not anything worse than 4th gens and there aren't any outbreaks of exploding verts just yet. The big shocker may be that non-GM drivers may drive as well as we do.

not wholy... also on the experince of driving with 4 switches in a poorly executed mustang vert. That and see'ing idiots drive around with "shark fins". And yes, costs would be lower (last time I checked GM could use a few more bones on each model to help stop the bleeding).

I wouldn't call it a "plauge"... this isn't like 80's paint flaking off or disasterous results like a pinto exploding... it's fixable, just annoying... but not something GM needs to expose themselves to if they can avoid it.

I guess the main problem is that the roof line is much back than it was in teh 4th gen making that area much larger and a bigger issue to cover.

I'd still like to see them pull the front window back a bit to ditch the 1/4 windows. I suppose it's a compromise between performance and the daily-driving masses. Admittedly there are people who wouldn't like the rear passengers to lose their little windows, but I have a feeling the average convertible shopper doesn't care about a few awkward inches of window that are useless on the driver side and practically blocked by the passenger's head rest anyway.

Everyone has their own ideas between being a "driver" and just "driving a car" I guess this is one of mine... backseat be damned, give me a clean interior with no hassels (like extra switches, costs, time/inconvience).

No matter, I'm sure GM's doing the best they can considering. I still have big expectations for the next f-body.

 

80's Mercedes...The safest convertibles on the planet:



Maybe we need some fancy, plastic corner-windows to improve visibility.

 

Drop it Steve. You're in the minority on this one. I've been living with rear quarter windows for years and they've never been an issue.

 

You are correct that many Lambo's and Ferrari's have almost a complete lack of rearward visibility and I think for the very few who have and drive those cars who cares what's going on behind ya anyway. But those are rear engine two seat sports cars that 99.9 percent of us will never even get to drive and hence they are not made for regular people. The Camaro is made for the masses.
And rear view visibility is important to the Camaro demographic. GM cares what lines of sight are in the rear just as much as the front from a 95 percentile human outline named "Oscar". More visibility is always better and it's only compromised by engineering needs or in rare cases a style that's just too great to change. In the 5th Gen's case I think GM found a great balance of style and functionality.

Well that's GM's ROI as they have decided that this is an important part of the 5th Gen and they expect all of their cost for development will make a better vehicle that will in turn drive more sales. There are lots of places for GM to cut costs and for all of us 4th Gen owners or just GM owners in general we know where they have cut corners. Instead of looking to GM to cut what seems to be a well received part of this Camaro we should be glad they didn't go cheap on the 5th Gen as many of us will own one. I don't want the cheapest made car with corners cut I want the best I can get.


Agreed and I think there is still plenty of unknowns to debate on this car. But if these pics from GM are to be believed, and I do, this topic seems like a done deal.
No more F-body as GM has switched to platform names using the Greek system. The 5th Gen is Zeta platform based like the G8/Holdens.