at 3,900lbs the camaro is a bit of a porker...Sure the V8 will make it feel lighter, but when it comes to handling and curvy roads, you are going to feel that weight, big time. When I look at this car, I think it should easily have come in 500lbs lighter...The Dodge Viper is a big car and it only weights like 3,200lbs...Chevy needs to slim this fat pie down if it wants to create a great handling car.

 

Sheet metal ver plastic fenders, doors, roof and hood

 

Welcome to last year.

Question is it really heavy compared to its competition?

The Challenger RT and SRT are over 2 tons and carry about the same equipment.

The M3 is just under 3800lbs, and its about the size of a Cobalt.

Is the Camaro heavy? Yes, when compared to past generations, it is the heaviest.

Things that add to 3900lbs
Solid chassis to get a projected 5 star crash rating at all angles.
IRS
14+ inch rotors and big 4 pistion calipers on all 4 corners
V8 with 6spd auto or manual trans
Chassis reinforcement due to the elongated axle to dash distance to allow the Camaro to have that long nose.
Add in all the modern saftey and technology features that are required and demanded at the price point, and you have your 3900lb vehicle.

Easily come down 500lbs? For a drag racer, sure you could probably cut 500lbs off this car with ease.
Viper is a silly car to compare to the Camaro. Why not just compare it to the Vette? Solstice? Aveo?

 

Welcome to the site. It's always good to have new members.

Usually, I ask (perhaps harshly at times) that new members take a moment to do a search on any questions they have, the reason being that 99% of the time, any question they have can not only be explained in detail, but has usually been rehashed dozens of times before, and it's much like beating a dead horse..... a very dead horse. However, in your case I'll make an exception because it's a good question and next time it's asked, that person can be directed to this topic by subject heading.

If Jason or one of the mods are up to it, perhaps they can stiky it to the top of this forum.


The short answer to your question "Why is the Camaro so damn heavy?" is because it's a rear drive, high output V8 powered , rear wheel drive, independently rear suspended, massed produced, 4 passenger, performance oriented, modern automobile.

If you get on the internet, and look for other rear drive vehicles with IRS that are not 2 passenger sports cars, you will find without exception they are much heavier than you'd expect. If they are V8 powered, you'd better be sitting down. If they are about the size of a Camaro, you might want to have a drink in hand.

The other shoe in the Camaro's weight is that high powered and high performance pieces simply weigh more. 14" iron brake rotors weigh alot more than 12" ones. 4 piston calipers weigh much more than single piston ones. It takes more metal and thicker metal to make a transmission and drivetrain that can handle 500 horsepower than just 300 horses. It takes heavier thicker suspension components to make a car handle the Nurburgring than it does to handle Interstate 5. A car body designed to handle a 500 horsepower engine and a world class handling system is going to weigh more than one that handles 2/3s that and "OK" suspension.



Performance over regular models=more weight

If you look at the Ford Shelby GT500, in and of itself it looks grossly overweight. It's 3,920 pounds, and at first brush you think that it's a pig. But then 2 things stand out. First, the Mustang GT it's based on is a very light 3550 pounds. Then secondly, you realize there is a supercharger, piping, and a whole lot of indestructable drivetrain parts added to the GT 500 that aren't part of the Mustang GT, including Brembo brakes (which aren't exactly light).


Yet, the GT 500 runs circles around the GT.

And it will dowright embarass a 3500 pound 4th gen Camaro around a track.


Your notion that you'd feel the weight of the Camaro simply is not supported by those who have driven the car both here on this very site as well as in the press and car magazine writers. Without exception, each one has highly praised the new Camaro's handling, with most calling it world class.

Weight is not the end-all, be-all in handling that you may think.

A BMW M5 is considered by many to be one of the best handling sedans in the world. Yet the thing weighs over 2 tons despite being no bigger than a Chevreolet Malibu.

The new Cadillac CTSv just set a Nurburgring record for sedans.
It weighs 4,200 pounds. (The CTS coupe is likely to weigh at least a couple pounds more than the sedan.)


In order to have a RWD, IRS, mass produced, 4 passenger coupe, that weighs about the same as the current Mustang GT and is durable enough to handle what anyone can throw at it without breaking, that can be done easily..... drop the V8 engine since less torque would mean the rest of the driveline (and body) can be lightened.

The Hyundai Genisis V6 coupe weighs 3,550.
The 6 cylinder 5 series BMW weighs 3,428 with an aluminum front substructure.
The Infiniti G35 coupe weighed 3,500 pounds (the new G37 is over 3600).

But if you want a high torque, high horsepower V8, then it's going to cost you in weight.


You may hear from a couple of members here who might attack the Camaro as being too heavy, and may consider the chassis it's built on as unsuitable. But you won't hear anything outside of a biased opinion of a particular architecture, and you certainly won't see examples or proof that weight can be lighter outside of a random weight number they feel ideal, let alone any examples of similar vehicles which have that ideal weight.

Personally, I choose to look at facts and reality.

To me, the best way to form an opinion is to take in information from those people who have actually/ invested the time and energy to create the car (many who reside on this very site), and those who have actually driven the car over those who have not, and dismiss the insight of those who have.

Taking these people's actual experience (including the moderators of this site and a few members who were invited to join in) the fact that comes out is the new Camaro is now a world class automobile in capabilities. An internet search of other similar vehicles show that the Camaro is world competitive as well in weight (it's actually LIGHTER than any other 4 passenger, 400+ horsepower V8 powered rear drive new anything on the planet at the current time).

However, everyone is entitled to an opinion based on personal preferences. But if something simply can not be done or plainly doesn't exist, then you can't change that fact with one's opinion, no matter how strongly it's held.


I have a heap of respect for those that created the new Camaro. Alot of people put in more effort than you can imagine to create a car that even in base V6 form can likely run circles around a 4th gen Camaro.

Sure, all of us would like to have had the car come in lighter in weight. None of us more than the General Motors Corperation itself. However, GM listened to enthusiasts on this new Camaro who wanted IRS, world class handling and braking, more durability (remember the 4th gen's "glass" diff and and a clutch that wasn't quite up to what even Ford was putting out?) and engine output at the front of the pack. If you want a lighter Camaro, the question becomes "What are you prepared to give up?

And finally, a little something to keep things in perspective.

The BMW M6 is almost exactly the same size as a new Camaro. It has extensive use of lightweight carbon fiber, titanium, and aluminum. It weighs over 3900 pounds. The slightly smaller Jaguar XKR weighs 4100 pounds. The similar size CTSv will weigh roughly 4,200 pounds. A Camaro SS will weigh only 3820 with manual, and will likely outrun all these cars.. especially around a track.

Something to think about.

 

No, it doesn't and no it won't. Instead of internet bluster I could post actual race results if you'd like (as I've offered before).

*EDIT* In fact, now that I have a moment... I think I will.

Limiting the example to just this year's championships for right now:

http://www.scca.com/popup/raceresult...12147&file=365

http://cms.scca.com/documents/solo_r...for%20book.pdf

Hmmm... I find exactly ONE previous gen Cobra (well down in the results) and exactly ZERO current gen Cobras. Odd. I would think that since these cars "run circles" around the lesser cars, they would be the ones to have. For some reason this does not seem to be the case. Why could that be?

You'll also find the same situation when looking at road race results. What possible explanation could satisfy this little quandary?


Correct, but it is very near the very top of the list. F1 teams don't have chemists engineering lighter gasolines for no reason. Weight matters, a lot. More than you may think.

Yes, on a course with HUGE straightaways where it can bring its prodigous power to bear. Speaking of big power advantages on that track..... have any new times been released for the SS Camaro or is it still only ~0.5% faster (two seconds) per lap than it's econobox stablemate? (Cobalt SS)



So GM has the same opinion as us (that its too heavy) but we're wrong, unreasonable or unrealistic?

You are right though, in that GM wishes it was lighter. I'm told that the GM guys in attendance at the last PRI show admitted it was too heavy. But they probably have unrealistic and unreasonable expectations especially in light of the fact that weight really doesn't matter as much as they think...





I could go on but I'll just stick with the high points on this one.

 

The answer is simple. When you base your ponycar on a two ton sedan, you get a two ton coupe...

 

Judging a car based on one parameter isn't how you determine it's capabilities. You must look at every angle, from every technical perspective you can and try to understand how each of these calculations affects the characteristics of the machine in question.

Do chefs only focus on one ingredient to make a magnificent meal, or do they take time mixing just the right amount of each ingredient into their creations to make the creation the best it can be? Do we, the laymen, condemn a chefs use of one ingredient without a further understanding of exactically how that will interact with the others until we first experiament on our own? So shouldn't we take a broader view as to how and why these engineers came to the conclusions they did when designing the Camaro, or any car for that matter?

I worked for 7 years under my father as a suspension/frame/alignment/brakes specialist at his shop and it radically changed my understanding of the crucial releationships each component in an automobile has with one another not only from a general standpoint, but also from a perspective of how they fail and why and where.

Here's a 'basic' list of performance specs on modern automobiles that should be a launching point for anyone interested in comparison. Start here, don't use it as the gospel truth. Use it as a baseline to study from.

Raw information in and of itself is useless without observation and study through which we can achieve understanding.

 

I have a couple of questions on this.

1. Where in the first document you linked is there anything about a Cobra at all?

The reason I ask is that I only see two Mustangs listed (a search for cobra fails to get any hits, in fact, a search for cob doesn't even get any hits). All I've found are two Mustangs, a 2007 model that's shown as a "Ford Mustang Shelb" and a 1996 Ford Mustang that's listed twice (looks to be under both the husband and wife).

2. In the second document, under the F Stock class, what is the difference between the Ford Shelby Mustang, the Ford Mustang Shelby GT, and the Ford Mustang GT?

The top four spots all have Shelby in the name. I don't see a non-Shelby car until 7th place. The F Stock Ladies class has two Shelby's and a Cobra at the top of results.

Either I'm missing something, or your two links are not supporting your argument at all. guionM stated that a GT 500 would run circles around a regular GT (which would either be talking about the 1960's Mustangs or the current generation since I don't believe there were any GT 500 models in any other generations of Mustang, and since the discussion is about weight, it would make sense that he's talking about the current gen). He also said the GT 500 would embarrass a 4th gen Camaro (I'm assuming he's talking about the same GT 500).

For the standard Mustang GT versus the Shelby GT 500, the links you posted seem to support the Shelby being quicker around the track and there are a number of magazine tests that also support the GT 500 being able to run circles around the standard GT when both are in stock trim. In fact, "Modern Racer" shows the following simple bit:

2007 Mustang GT "Curb Weight : 3483-3518 lbs"
"60-0 braking distance : 120 ft"
"200 ft skidpad : 0.87 g"

2007 Mustang Shelby GT 500 "Curb Weight : 3920 lbs"
"60-0 braking distance : 110 ft"
"200 ft skidpad : 0.90 g"

Could the standard GT be made to handle better than the heavier Shelby GT 500? I'm certain it could. I totally agree that a lighter weight car can be made to handle better than a heavier car. However, as produced by the factory, the Shelby GT 500 does outperform a standard GT in every category, and that's what I'd call running circles around... Plus, for a daily driver, light weight means either very high cost or poor crash test results and a harsher ride over rough roads since the car's momentum is more easily altered.

 

I'll take 120 feet from 60 mph any day compared to the numbers from the 60's vehicles that we all cherish so much.

 

If you crash a car into a train, which one wins?
When I drive my wife and child in my car, I don't want to be in the light car that won't win.
I want a Camaro, because its weight is good, and it will protect my family, better than the lighter cars out there.

 

My "little" GTI weighs supposedly almost 3300 lbs. That's what happens when you pack HSLA steel, 8 airbags, and a bunch of other crap in a modern day car.

With another 100hp stock on the v6 model, that extra 500 lbs for a bigger car is a bargain...

 

Explaination?

1. The SCCA link you provide has no cars in the price range of the GT500. The only car listed near the GT500's price point is GJ Dixon's '08 Corvette in the Marque Club.

2. Ford homologated Shelby GTs for SCCA, not the GT500. I see plenty of them on the list. They seem to be doing quite well.

Whenever you want to post those results between a 4th gen Camaro and a Ford GT500, I'll still be waiting. (friendly prodding)

So far, I've only seen items that support the notion that the GT500 will run circles around a 4th gen on a track.



Why Shell (not F1 teams... F1 is closely regulated, and teams can't afford it) is attempting to develop lighter fuels is to improve engine durability & increase mileage by changing the burn properties of the fuel.... not to save a couple of ounces per gallon.

Learned that with just a google search & visiting Shell and F1 related websites.

Yes, weight matters..... and cost matters too.

My thinking on weight is just the same as everyone else's. There is a point where cost take precedence over weight savings. It's just like anything you'd personally buy: there is a point where the cost to your wallet is as important as everything else. The bigger your wallet, the more you can spend. A Camaro that has to sell between $22 and $32K can afford alot less exotic metals and resources devoted it than a $2-5,000,000 F1 car.

My thinking on weight seems to be in tune with practicalities and realities, so I suppose there's nothing wrong with my thinking on weight.

Cobalt SS (2,930 pounds) did Nurburgring in 8.22.9 minutes.

BMW's new M3 (3,704) did it in.... 8.22 minutes.

Camaro SS did it in 8.20.

A regular Corvette C6 does it in 8.15.

A 3,100 pound Nissan 350Z does it in 8.26

The new Nissan GTR, 3836 lbs, ran a legitemate 7.55 (it's later time of 7.38 has been controversial).

The 4,200 pound 2008 Cadillac CTSv did Nurburgring in 7.59.3.
The 3,175 pound Porsche 997 Carrera S did it in 8.02.
The 4,000 pound BMW M6 does also does it in about 8 seconds flat.


Lessons to take away from these times:

1. Weight isn't the end-all, be-all... it's the ability of the engineers & tires to get great handling that's far more important (as well as enough power).

2. It's not that the Camaro SS times are bad.... it's that the Cobalt SS times are AMAZING!

3. The Camaro SS is already very quick around the track, but until gets that 500 horsepower V8, it's not going to set any records.

4. Considering the price of everything the Camaro SS and Cobalt SS are running with, there isn't a dang thing to be ashamed of.

http://www.trackpedia.com/wiki/Nurburgring
Yes.

When you actually think that a car with everything the Camaro has in it is going to weigh 3500 or even 3200 pounds, you're on too many meds.

To take back out the words placed in mouths that never came out, GM never said the car was too heavy. In fact, no one involved with the project has.

What they have said is they want to find ways to get weight out. Unless one is adept at language jujitsu, the meaning is simply that. They have to figure out ways to take weight out of the car, not that they put too much weight into it. You'd have to be damn near brain damaged to think someone purposely made something heavy at any car maker, let alone GM. Unnecessary weight means unnecessary materials. Unnecessary materials, meeds unnecessary costs.

I can gaurantee you, you go up to certain GM engineers who worked on the car and imply that they made the car unecessarily heavy, they'd be tempted to punch your lights out.


Sarcasm base on 2nd or 3rd hand information?

Remember back when GM was considering putting a live axle on Camaro? It never was taken seriously, but it was raised as a weight saving issue.

Hear of the 4th gen axle being a bit fragile instead of GM adding beefier unit (which they had available on their shelf)? It was done as a weight saving issue, and to keep the 4th gen in a certain weight class.

If I were you (and everyone else on this), knowing that the new Camaro can take a beating without even a hiccup of trouble & has high quality parts and pieces from chassis to interior parts, I would be very concerned about how & where they will take that weight out.

That's the thing that very few of the weight ***** are thinking about or addressing.

You aren't going to get 300 pounds off the Camaro without losing key parts of it. And you aren't going to get more than 50 or so pounds off the car without downgrading something. I'm not very enthusiastic about that part.

Everything is a tradeoff. How much is one willing to give up on the Camaro. If you want to give up a few items, you'll save a few pounds (perhaps at the expense of durability). If you want to gain some significant weight savings, then one had better be prepared to give up something substantial.

 

To answer the OP...

Just to **** you off ?

Seriously, go to Jenny Craig and lose some pounds before the car comes in if you're that worried. It'll accomplish the same thing.

 

You know, it occurs to me that the Camaro is a microcosm of what's good and bad within GM.

For various reasons, (political, corporate culture, just plain screw ups), it has taken this long to bring this Camaro. And when push came to shove, General Motors, the largest automobile manufacturer in the world, didn't have/couldn't create an architecture which could deliver an affordable, small, light, RWD, Camaro. Nope.

The best business plan available at the time, had Camaro piggy-backing it's developement on a family of large, heavy, RWD sedans which would all share an assembly line. Thereby spreading costs over hundreds of thousands of sedans which would make the corporate beancounters smile. The sedans are now dead and Camaro essentially pays for it's own, unique, architecture and assembly line - but with hundreds of pounds of baggage left over from those sedans, which again, never materialized. Oooops. I think that we can call this a "GM-ism".

On the other hand, lots of passionate people worked hard to bring this car. I give them credit. They pushed a corporate process, which was not happy or even willing to deliver a Camaro to consumers, in order to deliver a Camaro to consumers. They did what they could, to reskin a large, maybe even stodgy sedan, into a Camaro.

And if you get any of these passionate people from GM alone, away from the press, they will tell you how unhappy they personally are with the final weight of this car. And I don't blame them for it either. Once the decision was made to use Zeta, Camaro's weight was cast in stone.

 

so you're saying they had other platforms they could've used as options for the platform of the Camaro that would have been lighter?

And on the one hand I understand and agree with GuionM. Sure we could get a lighter car, but what are we willing to lose to get it? Which I'm sure, around here, probably wouldn't give a flying hoot. But at the same time there are smart cats apart of this community so who knows. And I'm totally diggin what Logansneo said too.

Bottomline- I'm glad, like many of you, to even be getting a Camaro to join these new "pony wars" or whatever. I'm heartily sorry for the engineers that THEY didn't get the Camaro they wanted either. And I'm sure they knew however, if they wanted the car to see the light of day some sacrifices and concessions had to be made(which I'm not saying I know jack about). But sorry all the same and sorry that we didn't get the Camaro we ALL wanted. But hey, at least we got it. GM may have made albeit another dumb mistake, yet did what they may have thought "best" for the car. But can't do anything about it now. All we can do is hope that better decisions will be made in the future that is to come. And to the guy or gal that asked this Q, if you're getting a Camaro you can make it lighter yourself...I guess you might be doing so at your own risk. But you can make it lighter.