<VV> More non-Corvair advice

[Tony Underwood]

At 01:26 PM 1/21/2007, you wrote:


>Which car are you identifying with this comment?  If it is the 4th Gen
>Camaro, you are off base.

...are you sure?   ;)


By the way, the "Rice" comment was a matter of opinion... *I* think 
the last gen Camaro's styling had drifted a tad bit too far into the 
"rice" area than the Mustang, which still projected the image of 
American beef.


>All pony cars moved up to that price ($16,000 base)


BASE...  but how much for a street performer like a Z-28?


>about the same time, and the Camaro offered a lot more than the mustang, both
>in  styling and performance.

The Mustang ran pretty well, could be tweaked without a back-or-head 
ache, and it had a back seat that was useful for more than a couple 
bags of groceries.


>The Camaro didn't have enough appeal to the
>Secretaries  who bought the base Mustangs,


When the last generation Camaros showed up, they were still kinda 
expensive.   I remember going down to the dealership to check them 
out on a weekend with a few of the biker bunch I rode with and we 
*all* thought they were a bit expensive.


>and the V8s were pricey,

...yep, and they didn't run all *that* well either.

>but offered much
>more  performance and handling than then Mustang at the same level - (V8 from
>Chevy  vs. V8 from Ford).

That's debatable...

Now:    The issue here was what you could do with the car, as in 
quick and inexpensive mods.   There are some *damned* quick Mustangs 
out running around... like the one my Nephew had which was pretty 
much stock except for the chipped ECM and it was amazingly quick... a 
fair bit quicker than the '93 Z-28 his mom has.   And it was a lot 
easier to work on.    Once you try to snatch the engine out of a 
last-gen Camaro you learn how unfriendly it is unless you're really 
flexible.     The Mustang was, in a nutshell, more interested in 
accepting mods.

Sorry Camaro fans, but the last generation Camaro may have looked 
sleek and sharp but it had quirks that the same era Mustangs didn't have.


>SLP SSs and Saleens were in their own worlds. My
>1996 V6  Camaro, about $16,800 out the door, offered things that a V6 Mustang
>owner could  only dream about. My car had 200HP, posi, 4-wheel discs, fast
>steering and  HD suspension, and enough luxury for me. And I 
>regularly trashed the
>V8 Mustangs  and many V8 Camaros, at the Autocross courses.

...couldn't have been anything to do with the driver, could it...?

>It has been pretty
>bulletproof,  for a car raced throughout it life, now, at 120K miles, a new
>power steering  pump is on the list, and I put a clutch in at 95K. 
>It has never
>leaked, never  stranded me, and the paint looks as shiny at the day I bought
>it.

Where does it get parked?    ;)


>I don't  remember any recalls, and the styling makes the newest Mustang
>look bloated - as  bloated as they were in 1967.

You can't sit there and tell me the new Mustang looks more  bloated 
than what it replaced...?    Evidently there are a bunch of people 
who don't mind the new Mustang, judging from its success in flying 
off the dealer lots.


>  It had, of course, no "Rice" appeal at
>all. Still  doesn't.


That's because the rice crowd went out and bought used Nissans and 
Hondas.   GM cancelled the Camaros after making them too expensive 
for much of the rice crowd.  ;)


>I do understand the business decision in retro-ing back
>to the 1969  Camaro in the new-next-year model. I won't be buying one, but
>that is okay.  Let's see what the base model costs and how it performs vs. my
>"oldie" 1996. -  Seth Emerson



The bottom line here is that GM dumped the last gen Camaro.   Sales 
dropped off.   People didn't want them... or rather the people who 
did want them couldn't afford them.    This new retro Camaro is an 
attempt to get back into the game that the Mustang has been ruling 
for years, which DC decided to nab a piece of, themselves, after the 
"Charger" didn't take over the performance car market the way they'd 
expected.

* * *

Here in my home town there were still new Camaros sitting on the lot 
unsold almost a year after GM had discontinued the car.   Mustangs, 
however, were still selling pretty well even after word that the 
retro model was on its way.   Today, the big Ford dealership can 
hardly get a new Mustang to stay on the lot long enough to cast a 
shadow.    Ford must have done something right with their ponycar.

I'm sorry about taking exception with the Camaro, but it's been my 
experience that in the last years of the Camaro's tenure, the Mustang 
just kept doing it right and the Camaro didn't.


You kinda have to take into consideration the sales figures... and 
the fact that Ford *Did* keep the Mustang affordable and practical 
enough for it to remain profitable while GM didn't do the same with 
the Camaro which stopped being worth their wiles.    I realize that 
Camaro fans find this hard to stomach but the fact remains that not 
even GM could afford the last generation Camaro.

I do NOT take pleasure in GM's woes... or do I revel in their 
previous poor business decisions along the way that resulted in the 
failure of the last gen Camaro.   Here's hoping they have better luck 
with this new effort.

...frankly, I'm kinda thinking that the new Camaro will be more of a 
success than the new Challenger in spite of the raw horsepower that's 
gonna be available in the new Dodge.    The Camaro will likely sell 
for less, and it's not gonna weigh almost 2 tons, and it won't be 
saddled with management issues from across an ocean, far as getting 
things done like improvements and upgrades and new features along the 
way.    Frau Mopar isn't real quick on the uptake these days...  ;)

...as you can see, I'm kinda down on the marques these days.   I was 
never much of a Ford fan... Mopar came first and GM followed ("Vairs) 
but I never seriously considered Ford as the place to shop for my 
kinda car...   but today it's different.

It's hard to really trust what DC is gonna do with the up & coming 
Challenger, price-wise as well as the end result's styling and 
interior etc.   GM's new Camaro remains a mixed bag since there's 
only the prototypes that have been seen so far.   The production 
model remains to be seen.    I do hope it's a success... but if it 
shows up selling for >30,000 bucks out of the chute the way they 
expect the Challenger to do, I kinda doubt it.

The reason the first Camaros and other ponycars (and most musclecars) 
were so successful was because a guy only two years out of high 
school working as assistant manager of a fast food restaurant could 
afford to buy one.    I know people who did just that.   Dad had to 
co-sign for them but they made the payments themselves.

That's impossible today.    No more marketing ponycars to the Youth 
of the nation... they can't afford them.   This is why both GM and DC 
really need to make their new ponycars not only affordable, but 
actually truly competitive with the Mustang, which IS a tried and 
proven vehicle.     I'm not entirely sure either of them can do 
it.    Not Dodge and its Challenger (no pun), because their parent in 
Stuttgart expects it to be a success even at a high price because 
they, DC, have decreed it to be so... and not GM, because they have 
to cover the obnoxiously severe overhead they've been carrying for so 
long it's almost become an old friend.

In a year's time, we'll all know.


tony..