Well the gloves are off and the fight is about to begin. With much bravado, Chevrolet is getting ready to remove the curtain and reveal the next in the line of many cheap plastic equipped Camaro's.
Taking a dig right at Ford and it's venerable Mustang, "We stopped bringing Mustangs on our development rides because they were so far behind us in our rearview mirror," says Al Oppenheiser, GM's North American rear-drive vehicle chief engineer. Sounds like fighting words to me.
The bad thing for us Ford afficianados is that he just may very well be right. While exact numbers haven't yet been released, V6 powered Camaros will be in the neighboorhood of 300 hp and 270 lbft of torque. This is thanks to the fact that instead of using the weak 3.5 liter V6 present in models such as the Impala, Chevy is going with the direct injected 3.6 present in the current Cadillac CTS.
In addition to this, SS models with recieve a 6.2 liter derivative of the aluminum intensive Corvetter small block. Automatics will run with 395 hp and 395 lbft of torque. Expect manuals to have 420 hp and 408 lbft of torque. As far as the previously rumored turbocharged V6 model, for now Oppenheiser admits that they are "thinking about it."
The other big news is that the new Camaro will use an independent rear suspension for the first time. This multilink system is easily put in place thanks to the car sharing a platform with the Pontiac G8. Target weight for the V6 will be 3700 lbs and the V8 will be 3900. The main difference maker in weight will be in the suspension.
All in all it looks to be an impressive effort. It remains to be seen how this new "musclecar war" will pan out considering Dodge Challengers have just recently hit the showroom and the first ones are only available with an automatic. Traditionally Camaro's have outpowered Mustangs but have a much smaller fanbase and don't seem to sell as well. In my opinion this is a direct result of Ford's loyalty to it's fans. We don't have to worry about the Mustang going out of production for several years (well, except for the Probe fiasco). Now comes the best part, comparison tests!
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