2016 Camaro

Flight Service wrote: In reply to Chris_V: The past 12 calender months the Mustang has been leading. The new car is killing the Camaro and Challenger combined. So there is some truth to his statement given a limited timeline.

Well, yeah, the new hotness vs an end of lifespan model... The Camaro has been outselling the Mustang for the last 5 years before that, though. But if you (or anyone) think that the styling of the new Camaro was developed in the last few weeks to compete with the 15 Mustang, you really don't know how long lead times are for new designs.

flatlander937 wrote: You need freaking t-rex arms to roll the window down in the Sky/Solstice. And the seat cannot be moved to a comfortable position if you're 5'10"+. The top is idiotic. And they feel so much heavier than they really are. I hate the Skystice cars with a passion. And everyone else is right to do so as well.

And yet the Solstice/Sky outsold the Miata while they were in production... So maybe you guys are simply wrong again.

Chris_V wrote: It's the CTS chassis, not the ATS chassis, so it's not exactly a small car platform. They wanted to share the platform with the CTSV and it's Corvette engine with all the chassis stiffening and hard points that the ATS doesn't have. The new Camaro is still bigger than a Mustang but now it's weight it about the same or slightly less. With the mag-ride suspension it should also be quicker in most situations. Mass savings is done with grams... across the board. From chassis to powertrain to interior. The leather or vinyl-wrapping on a dash is laid over a hard polymer substrate. The more luxurious dashes have a cushioning layer in between. Then there's the adhesive layer that fastens them all together. A basic dash just uses the substrate as the superficial surface. It just adds the texturing. The difference between the two is not small when we're trying to save in grams. And often times when you start adding things like leather to seats, you're also adding power seats. And mirrors. Electric motors and associated motion axes aren't free of mass. Then there's the gadgets. A 2 dimensional gauge cluster with bezels and fancy needles and electroluminescent fonts aren't equal in mass to some basic set up in a Spark either. it reflects the mentality of many consumers to under appreciate the effort required to save mass. Nothing should be free of scrutiny. The goal is a mass savings strategy that finds balance between every system in the car.... and still please the demographic, which always assumed a price target. And the last is important. You want a price target for the V8 version that also allows a respectable price (and profit margin) for the base version, which is really what pays for the top versions. And at this proice point, to get a stiff chassis that handles the V8, allows great suspension tuning, etc, and meets current safety regs, you're going to be a little bit heavier than a dedicated 2 seat sports car that is priced higher and can thus afford a lighter chassis.

You left out volume. Volume pulls all of this down a big notch on cost. GM can produce a lightweight car, at a price point, but that requires more than just a rebody. Maybe Gen 7.

Nice catch on the interior. I was part of the changes to the X5/6 platform when we did weight reduction on their interiors. All of that stuff was changed.

After reading some of the posts defending the Camaro (and other pony cars), I am torn between feeling guilty that I am not embracing the truly wonderful age we find ourselves living in and feeling like some people are suffering from Stockholm Syndrome.

In reply to T.J.: Pony cars are cheap mid sized coupes that have a lot of power and now handle decently. What else are they supposed to be?

They're supposed to be OMGWTFBBQ.

In reply to Chris_V:

I don't know what else they should be. They will sell a lot of them and people will like them. Other people won't like them, but they don't have to buy them. I'm not trying to make them more (or less) than they are. Just pointing out that even if I don't want anything to do with a new Mustang or Camaro, I should still appreciate that they exist and that what they offer in terms of performance, safety and comfort is way ahead of where things were years ago.

Ahh, thanks for clearing up the chassis confusion, I thought the rumor was ATS chassis. The CTS is still a mighty big car in its own right.

Best question now is, does it have the weird 6 lug pattern the CTS uses?

Personally, I'd still never consider the echo over the source, but I guess at least GM did something.

yamaha wrote: Ahh, thanks for clearing up the chassis confusion, I thought the rumor was ATS chassis. The CTS is still a mighty big car in its own right.

I as well was expecting the Camaro to be built on the ATS's chassis.

Things make a little more sense now.

Its ugly, its beautiful, its heavy, its supposed to be, its not as good as the Challenger, it tromps on the Challenger, it looks like the Mustang, it looks unlike anything I've ever seen before in my life, GM sucks, the Vega is better than anything ever built by any other car company in the history of the earth, the back end looks wrong, the front end is perfect, the back end is perfect, the front end is, idunno, just wrong, 450hp and it doesn't get 40mpg too, that sucks, its just a CTS in disguise, its a CTS underneath!, blah blah blah...

In reply to bravenrace:

That about sums it up. I may copy your response and use it in any number of other threads.

yamaha wrote: Best question now is, does it have the weird 6 lug pattern the CTS uses?

That's the OLD CTS. The current one on the Alpha Plus platform is 5 lug, like the Camaro (as is shown in the Camaro pictures I posted on the last page).

The 2016 Camaro is on the compact RWD Alpha platform which is what the ATS and current CTS are on. That's miles above the the previous full size Zeta platform that the 5th gen is based on.

Someone said it already, but people who are going to buy these cars don't give two flying berkeleys what they weigh. The reasons they want a Camaro is because of the styling, acceleration, and that it's a Camaro.

I'm apparently the 1% of the GRMers that like big dumb cars with big dumb horsepower.

WE ARE THE ONE PERCENT!

T.J. wrote: In reply to bravenrace: That about sums it up. I may copy your response and use it in any number of other threads.

I may have to as well

In reply to SyntheticBlinkerFluid:

Better be careful, the last person that touted "1%" lingo ended up encased inside concrete.....

And I'd still rather have the pony instead of the shrimp. Just preference, and the lack of a mullet.

In reply to yamaha:

Thread killer.

SyntheticBlinkerFluid wrote: I'm apparently the 1% of the GRMers that like big dumb cars with big dumb horsepower. WE ARE THE ONE PERCENT!

I'm right there with you.
I like small cars too, but I love big stupid power all the same.

I didn't read through the whole thread, but here's my take:

I really like the updates. I like that they have brought the car in-line with the Mustang, and I welcome the change to the newer. better Alpha platform AND the inclusion of the ATS's turbo 4. That's great daily driver material. The rest, to me, is gravy. Looks like they are going in the right direction (finally!).

What my concern is lies on the inside of the car. I sat in a 5th Gen a couple times, and my head was banging against the headliner in a non-sunroof car. That was really disappointing. For such a big car, there was no room and no outward visibility. The new one looks to be even worse. I have no such problems in the last-gen Mustang or Challenger.

I predict that the 7th Gen Camaro will forgo windows entirely and just have screens on the inside. Someone needs to Photoshop this.

Chris_V wrote:

yamaha wrote: Best question now is, does it have the weird 6 lug pattern the CTS uses?

That's the OLD CTS.

Specifically the CTS-V. Non-V models have five lugs. I'm 90% sure, will be 100% when Da Boss drives his 3.6 CTS4 in instead of the truck.

Don't know if I'm too late to contribute on the weight debate, but, IIRC, my '93 Formula LT1 weighed 3614 on New England Dragway's scales back when I had it. That was with me(160lbs) and a 1/2 tank of gas or so.

In reply to SeanC:

And Firebirds tended to be heavier than Camaros since they were all upmarket.

One of my customers had a TA that was in the 3800lb range. OTOH it had zero lightening done to it (gotta have full interior/air/ABS/sound deadening/etc) and a twin turbo setup and huge brakes and a rearend that I couldn't quite identify, not quite 14-bolt and not quite Dana 60, but it was hee-yuuge...

As I said in another thread, the car manufacturers are getting very good at making pigs dance. And middle America wants pigs. Most of us see these cars as too porky for us. GM probably thinks, "Hey, it's big enough to keep the rolling-easy-chair crew happy, and its faster than all but the exotics and a few gonzos in road-going race cars". In other words, this and the new Mustang are the closest yet to keeping everyone happy. And from a sales standpoint, us GRM types are the tiny minority. We should be happy that they even bother making track packs for stuff like this.

All that said, while I prefer the LS motors to the Ford V8s, That's the only thing. Simply put, Ford hides its piggyness better. Chrysler doesn't even seem to bother. They're more like "Not only are we proud of our pigginess, BUT WE'RE FREAKING BOARS!"

Kreb wrote: All that said, while I prefer the LS motors to the Ford V8s, That's the only thing. Simply put, Ford hides its piggyness better. Chrysler doesn't even seem to bother. They're more like "Not only are we proud of our pigginess, BUT WE'RE FREAKING BOARS!"

GM knows how to make pigs properly dance. The Z28 and the CTS-V cars prove that. Why they don't apply that know how to all of their big cars is a different issue.

SyntheticBlinkerFluid wrote: I'm apparently the 1% of the GRMers that like big dumb cars with big dumb horsepower.

Technically, the early 5th gen Camaro V8s were the big dumb cars. The 6 gen Camaro is the small smart car with big, smart horsepower. The 5th gen SS 1LE were probably somewhere in between.

Yuck...this is the absolutely ugliest Camaro generation, nice job going backwards both in making the style and visibility even worse than the previous gen GM. Belt-lines have become freaking neck-lines, the window sill is now a place to rest your chin if you can stretch your neck high enough...:

I mean, just look at the "I don't even..." expressions on these two GM spokesmen's faces...LOL

Love the even smaller mail-box slot that is the rear window view, no wonder backup cameras are being mandated soon...

I had a 4th gen hardtop base Camaro, which while no lightweight still came in at just over 3200 lbs with a full tank on a calibrated drag strip scale (well it was stripped out nearly 200 lbs from stock...) While an overweight and aged ballerina that wasn't exactly nimble and a real pain for upkeep/maintenance, she was very competent and balanced on track (almost could be called a sports car...) and her beauty beyond these latest Camaro iterations. 3,700 lbs for a Camaro is heavy (and the ~4k lbs of the current gen is already disgustingly overweight) - get it under 3,500 lbs or don't even bother GM. And again, stop assaulting my eyes and build a proper Camaro... so what if it's "The best handling Camaro ever" - it's still ugly and morbidly OBESE.

The Camaro after the 4th gen is dead to me... except the insane Z-28, which would be even more insane with LESS MASS GM!