The last time I sat in anything like a Camaro, was back in 1983 in Memphis Tennessee, when I got a steer in a Pontiac Trans Am with a 455 under the hood, but it didn’t look this!
The three principle designers of the new Chevrolet Camaro parked several spanking new examples of the car outside the Times Building in Manhattan last week to gauge public opinion.
Even in midst of this worldwide financial doom and gloom, General Motors has over 14,000 firm orders for the Camaro and judging by candid public opinion, they’ll need to start printing a few more order books.
The funny thing is, none of the three designers were born when the original 1969 Camaro was released. For inspiration, they just looked at photos of the car, which belonged to G.M.’s head of design, Ed Welburn.
The process must have worked for Rebecca Waldmeir, from G.M.’s colour and trim studio who at just 26 years old, showed off the palette of available paint jobs.
You can get some heritage colours, which were used in earlier Camaro models or go for “inferno orange” which includes metal fleck in the actual paint.
The exterior design manager for the car, Korean born Sangyup Lee was on hand to point out features to the punters who stopped to take pictures with mobile phones and ask questions.
Mr. Lee, who is 39 studied at the Art College of Design (better known as the designer factory) in Pasadena, California and has had stints at both Porsche and Pininfarina before joining General Motors.
He says to a passer-by “Look at the headlight and the eyebrow…there is a lot of detail and jewellery to the car”.
Sangyup runs his hands over the wide rear guard of the black car and says, “This is the deepest stamping General Motors has ever done…It is deeper than anything Porsche ever did”
Another guy asked Mr. Lee about the power. “That’s 426 for the V8 and the V6 gets 29 miles per gallon on the highway”
I’ve got to agree with the US punters – this car really does it for me.
