I have been away for a few days, and tuning back in, one would think GM just blew itself apart & took humanity with it. I've been simply floored by the reactions a few simple words from Mr Reuss has drawn. That being the case, let's go back to what we already know.

1. Current F-body production is ending in less than 60 days. You haven't been able to order a new one for 4 months now, so for all intents & purposes, it . End of story.

2. GM is somewhat eager to close the Ste. Therese plant. It's not the worker's fault, it's just a plant that GM has no use for in the future (as is). GM will, to save future production cost, aim to produce multiple car lines in it's automotive plants. Even Corvette has to share.

3. There is no current chassis to build the Camaro we all want on. Simply because Cadillac now has a RWD car, doesn't mean you can simply take a chainsaw and a welder's torch & chop a CTS up to make a Camaro. Camaro's body structure will be unique (unless it's based on another car...Solstice?) and won't be shared with GM's sedans (how tall is the CTS' firewall anyway?). CTS' suspension components may make their way in, but the rest of the car still has to be engineered from the ground up.....if it already hasn't been.

4. Mr Lutz initiated the new Camaro's design ideas last fall. Before then, there were basically what amounted to "what-if" sessions on a new Camaro. There is no official program for Camaro to date because it isn't a program till a proposal (what a car IS till it becomes a program) gets the final go-ahead for production. Money may be approved for a part or a study here & there, and people already "on the clock" can be assigned to work on a front spindle for a STS or Camaro though neither may be an "official" program yet.

5. Regardless as to what some may think, a car doesn't simply appear in a matter of months. The longest & most painstaking part of a new isn't the last 18 months after final approval is given, it's the 18 months or even many years before that. Even if Camaro was approved today, it wouldn't be out before early 2004 as a 2005 , and most likely 2006. Just to give you something to measure by, the 2004 1/2 Mustang recieved it's final approval last summer, and it's still at least a year & a half away.

6. GM has more than a couple of RWD concepts comming this winter & at least 1 a little earlier. If I'm not mistaken, it's already been said that at least one will be a 4 passenger car. That's either Camaro or Monte Carlo.

7. Mr Ruess initially said that GM is looking for a chassis suitable for Camaro. He didn't retract that statement.

Overall, there is nothing that's changed. Perhaps there is a surprise, but most likely we'll be waiting till 2005. But don't shoot GM down just yet. The people who are trying to turn things around have been there only about a year. It won't be till 2004 that we'll see what they can really do, you can't turn around a company that size on a dime.

 

I have a question that, amazingly enough, I do not believe has even been proposed, because we have all believed it to be a non-fact for some reason or another, BUT...

Are we to assume that Chevrolet did ZERO research on a 5th gen , ever ??

I mean, at some point in 1995-96, nothing was ever started?!

Even if it was never an official program.... why do we all assume that any work on a 5th gen was started so recently?

 

Around about 1995-1996 some work HAD been done. It was going to come off the same platform as either the Seville replacement or GMX-320 (CTS). We had already started detailed design on chassis/body components and hardware (I was at a Tier 1 supplier at the time).

 

You wouldn't want to tell us what happened, would you?

 

GM studied a number of replament possiblities in the 95-96 timeframe. Pacer-x's was one of them. Also, they DID study Holden, but one look at a Monaro and and you could tell it's just not a Camaro. Plus the culture at GM that brought the GTO here is nowhere near the culture that was at GM at time. Spending alot of money and fastracking a limited edition car was not an option. The decision to kill the cirrent car was made a while back, and work didn't begin on a new car untill the last year or two. It's rumored that they dont even refer to the new car as Camaro at GM..

While we are one the subject, it is Pontiac in the biggest hole with the F-body leaving. You can't have your excitement division with a the GTP as flagship, it is a great car and all, but not a sports car. They did studies on a Corvette based Firebird (C6firebird), and I found those leaked documents to be very true. The problem is that GM didn't want a cheap version of the Vette...kinda dilutes it. Thats why we saw the GTO show car that fell on death ears, and early guage for the Goats return. The new GTO is all Lutz, because he pretty much realized the mess looming with Pontiac not having a halo car. The only reason the GTO is coming here is because GM avoided the issue with Pontiac so long.

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Branden-Founder-www.GMInsidenews.com-The #1 GM News Site on the Net!
1995 Firebird A4 White with red leather! SOLD 1979 Firbird Formula 400HO!
Visit my homepage!

 

Hmm, very interesting. So if what PacerX says is true, we must assume that those plans back in '95-'96 (which seem pretty far along at the time) were abandoned and the whole project re-started again. I wonder why they wouldn't pick up where they left off. Perhaps Lutz saw some sketches he didn't like, maybe 3 or 4 years changes your perceptions of how the next Camaro should look, what options it has for a chassis, etc.

All in all, some very interesting news.

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Mark

94 Z28, Red, A4, 3:23
Lone Mods--LPE CAI, !Lapeer Dragway.
(Hey, I'm a college boy I can't afford gobs of bolt-ons!)

Best time: 14.658 @ 95.1
with SES light on and Driver off! (First and only time at track)

The F-body will NEVER die.

 

Just an thought, but what if the design ideas that Mr Lutz commisioned last fall uses PacerX's reported CTS derived car?

Also, about a year or so ago, while one of the Holden debates, didn't redplanet mention that a new floorpan had to be designed for a Camaro?

 

It's rumored that they dont even refer to the new car as Camaro at GM..
Sorry if this is a dumb question, but if they don't call it a Camaro what exactly DO they refer to it as?

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Black 1999 Z28 Camaro Hardtop M6,Royal Purple,Whisper Lid,K@N,FRA MOD,CAGS,BMR Subframes,Flowtech Cutout,Flowmaster Muffler,4.10 Gear,T/A Girdle,Auto Meter Shift Light,Nitto's

 

GMX-###, most likely.

 

Not likely. If the car's position in the marketplace is not assured, i.e. it could be a Camaro or Monte Carlo, then that would be the case. But if it were definitely a 5th gen Camaro, you can bet your bottom dollar they'll call it the "f-body program".

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2000 Z28, Arctic White, Ebony leather, A4, 2.73, RS-A, 13.3 @ 105.9 stock

 

All other GM chassis/car projects get GMX-### designations as far as I can tell. The F-body chassis/platform/architecture/whatever GM wants to call it this week is dead, anyway.

 

No...its not a alpha-numeric designation....It's just an internal code name...if I say anymore I will have to hunt all the readers down and kill them...

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Branden-Founder-www.GMInsidenews.com-The #1 GM News Site on the Net!
1995 Firebird A4 White with red leather! SOLD 1979 Firbird Formula 400HO!
Visit my homepage!

 

The "F"-Platform is dead.

If they bring Camaro or Firebird back, it almost assuredly won't have an exclusive platform... it will probablyt be Simga, so really, unless they are feeling nostalgic, I don't see why they'd refer to it as the "F"-car or anything "F".

 

Iv said this before too.
I hate it when people refer to the 5th gen as an "F5".
If anything, call it a CA5.

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---Ted Krygier-->

TED ONLINE

 

It doesn't matter that it's *based* on another platform; if it's made into a pony car it will still receive its own designation. Remember the first J-cars? They spawned two very similar car families, the Grand Am/Somerset Regal/Calais, and the Corsica/Beretta. Even though they shared almost every major component with the J-cars, were they called J-cars, ? No, they were N-cars and L-cars, respectively.

It will be the same with a new pony car, but even moreso because the F-body designation is quite well known, and thus it will be natural to continue calling a Camaro replacement as such. The Camaro has always been an "f-body" since Day 1, even though it's been through 4 different chassis. I really don't think gen 5 will be any different .


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2000 Z28, Arctic White, Ebony leather, A4, 2.73, RS-A, 13.3 @ 105.9 stock