When it comes to rear wheel drive coupes, the Chevy Camaro rules the roost. Last year, with almost 90,000 units sold, the Camaro beat out all comers in the category which includes the traditional pony car competition along with cars like the Hyundai Genesis and others. Now reports are slowly leaking out of Detroit that 2015 will bring the 6th generation of the Camaro and SPOILER ALERT it will be smaller and lighter.
This is good news because if the Camaro got larger and heavier it would be called a 3/4-ton truck. All of the modern pony cars are very much larger examples of their fore-fathers with the Mustang being the flyweight of the group at about 3600lbs for the Boss 302 version and the Challenger is the fat ass of the bunch weighing in at over 4200lbs. The shipping weight of the Camaro is 3780lbs or roughly 100lbs heavier than BangShift’s new project 1987 Chevy Caprice!
By shrinking the overall dimensions of the car, we’re expecting a more sleekly styled Camaro that has cues pointing back at second generation Camaros. In the weight reduction department, we’re curious as to where it will come from. Will the company employ the use of expensive lightweight components as they have done on the Corvette? Will there be changes in the manufacturing process to reduce weight? Will it simply come as the result of shrinking the overall size of the car itself? We’re reasonably certain that all of the doo-dads, add-ons, and other extraneous crap we care nothing about will be not only available, but standard equipment on Camaros, so that weighty albatross will still be hanging around engineer’s necks as they work on the car.
GM is going to need a strong contender for 2015 as that year marks the 50th anniversary of the Mustang and you can bet Ford will pull out all the stops to win the number one sales slot to complete the 50 year circle of that pony car’s life.
As news breaks and renderings start to appear, we will keep you posted!
Stay tuned!
Link: GM working on 2015 Camaro
It. Will. Still. Suck.
Fuel economy standards will require all of the surviving pony cars to downsize and become lighter. A 54+ m.p.g. average is a tough nut to crack.
Smaller, lighter??? How about CHEAPER?
That’s a good thing. Like they said above, I think one of the things that hurt these new generation so called pony cars is their size. Bigger is not alwas better.