Good take....

They need to sell more V6's in a big way to satisfy smog requirements. I believe they have to sell 10 to 1 just like the Mustang or they run into issues with the whole fleet.

I hope the 5th Generation camaro is succesfull but I thing GM really screwed the pooch. They let a platform die for 8+ years. (Not a great thing as F-Body owners were forced to buy something else)

I think there Marketing for the car has been hugely missmanaged. Why on earth would you promote a car so heavily in the press/ Transformers when the car was 2+ years away from hitting the ground. They built alot of excitement for alot of $$$ and it has died off. (When people see things they want it today not maybe 3 years from now )

 

I agreed with ColeTrickle...They hit the ground too late!

GM have tons of goodies, but their marketing sucks...that's why many Japanese brands(especially, Toyota) stole a lot of customer from them.

 

The whole deal on the marketing it they built a concept car and used it and public opinion to get the car approved by GM managment.

Bob Lutz and the Camaro team had to work to get the car approved and then keep it alive. If it had not been promoted publicly and the supported by the many calls, letters and e mails they would have never gotten the car into production. We came very close to losing this car several times and the public reaction more than once saved.

There is a lot more to this than what the average armchair enthusiast knows.

Also the V6 needs to sell not for Eviromental reasons I think you ment CAFE and that is only part of it. The big key is Volume to keep just justify a production line. They need to sell 100,000 Camaro's and there is just not enough market for that many V8 SS Camaro's over $30,000.

There is no sister car to suck up production and the RWD Impala that was going to share the same line was canceled.

As for the 8 year lay off. It came down to lack of money and politics. There were some good reasons it had to happen and took some time to undo. Plants torn down and union deals broken and resigned etc. They had to lower cost of prodction.

Also they do need to meet Fuel mileage regs and the new CAFE regs are tough and will become tougher soon. They very well may shorten the life of this car on the Zeta. We may see one on the Alpha platform.

I wish it was a simple as some here would like to make it but it's just not.

I hope you understand I am not trying to be argumentitive here as I am just giving info I have been given from people working and connected to this program.

I am lucky to know some people well connected with the Camaro program and also know the past Camaro/ Firebird manager and present one. These people are not dumb and love this car more than anyone. But they are working with a difficult system and a great lack of money as you may have noted in the news. The money problems have been around for a long time and have been an isssue on this car for a long time. GM has a lot of needs and the Camaro is not a priority vs Trucks and new small sedans like the Malibu. Those have been profit centers and need to be done first. Boring cars pay the bills or at least most of them.

If you want to learn more please read the post on Camaroz28.com and Camaro 5 by Fbodfather. Scott is a great guy and the past F body manager. He is a wealth of all things Camaro history past present and in his case future.

Scott also has been a big help as has Cherly Pilcher the present Camaro Managers husband in some of may reashearch into some prototype Pontiac parts I have collected.

There is just to much to cover in a post on the how and whys but all of the work to build this car was not as easy. It really is a miricle it was built at all.

Scott plans to write a book on building of the 5th gen in the future and hit should make a good story just form the parts I know.

Oh, I will not make an excuse for GM marketing as a whole as they do make a lot of maistakes but they have too many models and just can't afford to market them as well as they should. Lutz today just pointed out how well the Malibu is doing and how poor the Aura is doing. It was due to the marketing of each car.

So yes they do need to improve marketing but in the case of the Camaro they had their hands tied by other problems and had to use marketing to get it built. So in a way they has to work to let the public sell the car to GM brass. KInd of reverse engineering ont he part of the Camaro people.

 

So sad and actually unbelievable! Individuals within the GM organization inappropriately using marketing money, despite the financial challenges of the company, to prematurely promote and market - not to the public but simply to influence (or pressure) the Executive in order to get their way and/or what they thought was best for the company. Individual desires must be sacrificed for the greater, overall good of the company and this definitely has to be fixed, before GM itself will be fixed. I'm sorry, IMO such action is not reverse engineering, it is inappropriate and borders on dishonesty. Good educated business decision are required, not decision based on public opinion influenced by marketing hype.

 

We are not taling about great deals of money as things like the TransFormer movie was offered to them and worked well for each GM product that was in the movie.

It is not dishonest or a waste on the part of the Camaro people. It is just a shame they had to work so hard to promote a car that shiuld have been a no brainer.

But with money tight at GM each brand and model has to fight to survive. It i sjust one mpre point of too many models and not enough funds to support them as well as they should.

You can built 72 models and sell them poorly or you can build 30 models and market and build them as they should be.

The hard part is to cut models is the risk of market share loss, loss of loyal buyers who are buying that model. Also the cost of buying out dealers contracts. It is painful and an expesive deal.

What the Fiero went through is not an isolated deal. The Fiero has an even harder timne and was comprimised so much in the end it created many problems that contributed to the short life of the car.

The Product vs Money people at GM have always been at odds. GM has mostly fixed this in the past few years by bringing in people like Bob Lutz who knows product and reports directly to Rick Wagnoner. But there are still some internal fighting that goes on yet.

GM is much better now than 5 years ago but with the issues they have had over the last 40 years it will take to fix everything.

Look for GM to be Chevy, Cadillac, Buick and GMC. Also just mentions a day ago it was hinted Pontiac may become a one model niche division sold at the Buick dealer. What model was not mentioned but many think it will be the G8 or what ever Holden replaces the G8 with in RWD.

 

I'm sure the Producers for the movie approached GM, I am also sure they approached Chrysler to get the Challenger and I'm sure he who was the highest bidder got their vehicle into the spot light. I think you'd be surprised what they paid to make that the Camero. But how much or how little they paid is not the issue.

I agree that dishonest is rather a strong statement but their actions were most definitely inappropriate. This is not the process a well oiled, united corporation utilizes to make intelligent, educated business decisions. If the Camaro Team utilized marketing to the public, even if it was cost neutral (which it most certainly wasn't) to influence the the Executive Team at GM they are part of the problem and should be embarrassed by their action. Working hard to bring a product to market is what they are paid to do, there is no shame in doing that. What is a shame is their action of "reverse engineering" to prematurely market a car with the sole purpose of influencing an internal decision.

 

Canuck, you are obviously not a car guy. Without inside moves by performance people all the vehicles made in America would be relatively slow, vanilla, economy transportation that would be bought and driven purely as necessary transportation. One vehicle would remain in the original owners hands until it became obsolete resulting in few new vehicles made.
Americans love cars and as a result car manufacturers became our biggest industry. A car to me is much more than transportation, it is what completes my persona.

 

Sorry, your perception couldn't be more wrong. I never said that I didn't love or support the production of the Camaro, in fact I seriously considered it over the SS but felt the delivery delays in getting my HHR would have been even more exaggerated waiting for a new Camaro. I've owned several Corvettes, Mustangs, a Porsche and a Barracuda and truthfully consider your comment a bit of an insult.

What I am saying is that GM needs everyone supporting and pulling in the same direction if they are to have a chance of surviving - I believe the term is Team Work! If the Executive in all their wisdom (insert smiley here), after studying the cost to design/build and having researched market acceptance, decide to cut a model (and I agree with HYPERV6 that they are going to have to make those tough decision), regardless of how unpopular or difficult those decisions might be to accept, having employees using coercion to under-mind them is not the trade mark of a successful company. Selling, promoting and lobbying for your ideas, your project or your "dream" car to Senior Management is generally the accepted business process. Accepting rejection and then supporting, as a team the strategy of the company is crucial and a culture that GM (or the Camaro Team) appears to be missing.

Maybe the Exceutive would have gone ahead with the Camaro without such "reverse engineering" or maybe they would have canned it. Personnaly I think it is a great looking vehicle and I believe with the V6, it will be a great seller, with the V8 option providing the muscle car icon that the car deserves (albeit arriving rather late on the scene). Maybe the car will be the an instrument in helping GM climb back out of it's financial troubles, maybe it will be the nail in their coffin. My comments are not about the Camaro itself, but simply an observation of the company (I've re-read my post and I'm not sure how you missinterpreted that?). With the problems that GM has, it is absolutely critical that their Management Team works together adopting, accepting and supportng the corporate strategy. Individual subversive groups, regardless of how right/wrong or well intentioned their actions are, is not going to bring GM back to health.

Nough said I think. I typically (silently) support HYPERV6, find he has good insight and opinions on vehicles and the industry in general. I think the Camaro will be an awesome set of wheels, had never said anything to the contrary, but I disagree on the process the Camaro Team utilized to secure the Go-Ahead for their project and firmly believe that it is a poor business practice. As much as us "Car Guys" want to extend out personna with these muscle cars, as previously stated it's the Malibu's of this world that pay the bills and that has never been more true nor more important to the big three than it is today.

 

After 7 months and about 9000 miles my average is 23.8MPG and I do mostly city driving.

When I took it to Tennessee this summer I was getting about 32MPG on the highway. I have been very happy with the gas mileage.

I also heard that the Camaro V6 is supposed to get 29MPG HIghway mileage and should be comparable to the HHR. Maybe a bit less for every day city driving, but still very good compared to past V6's

 

If anyone had worked in the Oshawa plant when GM first announced that the Camaro would be built there, you would have seen different points of view by the workers. They actually had the first Camaro and HHR on display in the plant at the same time back then. Some were excited about the build, while some were excited about the build plus thought of the other plants that had built it prior. Some in the Oshawa plants thought that the Camaro was a "curse" as previous plants that had built it are now shut down. As one of those employees from the Oshawa plant(since retired), I could feel the ripple of nervousness when the Camaro was first announced. Many know of the closing in St. Therese plant.
I do believe that the new Camaro will be a success as long as a somewhat recovery to our economy can improve so customers may have resources to purchase one.