Maybe Supercars should have just stuck with the Holden Commodore…
The news last week that General Motors management has rejected the latest bid to revive the Chevrolet Camaro has me worried about the future of performance cars in general. If a brand as big as Chevrolet, part of the General Motors behemoth, cannot make a business case for an iconic model, then what hope does the rest of the automotive world have?
We’ve already seen Ford opt for an overhaul of the previous generation Mustang, rather than developing an all-new one, so even in the once strong American market sports coupes (aka ‘pony cars’) are faltering.
The problem is, it leaves Supercars and NASCAR (albeit to a lesser degree), with a rather awkward problem – racing a defunct car. The opening line of this story is only a partial joke, the harsh truth is despite Supercars’ talk of ‘production relevance’ for Gen3, the Camaro has exactly as much production relevance as the Holden Commodore does. Both were last sold in Australia in 2020, both lived on in other markets for a few more years but both are now defunct (although the Buick Regal version of the Commodore/Opel Insignia lives on in China).
With Chevrolet electing not to go ahead with the latest Camaro revival plan, it means the brand won’t have a suitable road car to go racing in Supercars or NASCAR. Even now Chevrolet has removed Camaro branding from its NASCARs but Supercars isn’t so lucky, it’s simply racing an ‘old car’ for the foreseeable future.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s great that Chevrolet is committed to racing in Supercars without Triple Eight’s know-how but the Camaro will be seven years removed from Australian showrooms by the time the Bow Tie brand makes its next move. What that ‘next move’ is is the biggest question facing the sport. Toyota’s arrival takes a lot of the pressure off Supercars management, but having three brands involved is better than two, so it would be disappointing if Toyota’s arrival impacted Chevrolet’s future.
The bigger issue for Chevrolet is it has no obvious replacement anywhere in its range. The only remaining passenger car (not a ute or SUV) is the Malibu and that’s about as sporty as Elon Musk is conventional and poor. So the long held belief in Supercars that Chevrolet’s NASCAR solution would solve the local problem is turning out to not be quite so true. NASCAR is a sillouhette formula, the car looks like a Camaro but is built around a large, purpose-built chassis. The Supercar is much closer to the road car in size and shape, so even if you take the ‘Camaro’ badges off, it’s still clearly going to be a Camaro rather than a generic Chevrolet, like the NASCAR does.
There isn’t an obvious or easy answer – or one expected anytime soon. If this latest report from GM HQ is timely and the latest Camaro proposal was rejected in the last few months, it means we have several years to wait before the famous pony car can return. There is simply no way the Camaro could come back before 2027, it will take years for a new model to be designed, developed and tested even if the next business case gets an immediate approval.
But the motorsport side is only part of the story, because the lack of a Camaro revival is just bad news for performance car fans. But, there is a glimmer of hope…
If there’s a silver lining in this latest development it’s that Chevrolet was planning an affordable performance car, which is a dramatic change from the earlier reports that it was considering an electric sedan or (shudder) SUV. Clearly the cooling attitude towards electric cars has shaped Chevrolet’s thinking, but I also suspect that GM President (and former Holden boss) Mark Reuss is a ‘car guy’ and wants to keep Camaro true to its roots.
I hope that’s the case, but I just hope they don’t give up and can find a new way to bring the Camaro back – both on the road and track.
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