The mysterious “quality assessment” of 2012 Camaro ZL1s has come to a close and GM has announced that production, deliveries, and new orders are being processed for the 580hp Camaros. Despite much prodding and peeking by media outlets, such as this one, GM was able to keep the reason for the “quality assessment” and production freeze under wraps. While history will probably tell us what the actual cause was, it is pretty impressive that an organization the size of GM could keep the actual reason locked down with the media attention this story has garnered.

While it certainly put the company in an uncomfortable position, this was the right move in the long run. Releasing the cars with a known condition or flaw would have led to a disastrous run of bad PR if they all started to fail for the same reason. Taking the preemptive move of catching the issue before the cars hit the streets (well one actually did, but the company called it back in) saved them a huge headache. Owners of 2012 models will make out in the long run because with the production of the cars stopped for a few weeks, there will surely be a small number of total sales, or at least smaller than planned and that means increased value down the road.

GM apparently sent a letter to all of the people waiting on cars to let them know that all orders would be filled before the end of April. As much as it sucks to have to wait, but we’d rather that then to get the car and have to turn it back over to the dealer for repairs. If our number comes up on the Mega Millions drawing tonight, we’ll be the next guys in line.