Camaro dreams: Cheap at any price
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The market’s up nearly 1,000 points! We’re saved! Buy a Camaro!
General Motors Corp. stock was up a third today and the company wasn’t bankrupt, which made for perfect timing to announce long-awaited pricing information on its even longer-awaited 2010 model-year Camaro. The good news: It’s not priced like a Volt. The bad news: It ain’t priced like an Aveo either. Oh, and Ford and Chrysler make cheaper muscle cars.
For the V-6 entry-level LS model, MSRP starts at $22,245, plus $750 destination charge; while the SS, with the V-8 engine and the eight-ball shifter,* will have an MSRP of $30,245, not including destination fee. Production will start in the first quarter of next year, and the cars should hit dealerships in March.
GM also released estimated fuel economy numbers for both models. The LS, with 3.6 liters of displacement, 300 horsepower and 273 pounds of torque, will get 27 miles per gallon on the highway, the company says, while the SS, holding a whopping 6.2 liters of the combustible stuff, generates 422 horsepower and puts out 408 pounds of twisting force, for a highway mpg of 23.
“The wait is almost over,” said Ed Peper, Chevrolet’s North American vice president, on today’s news. It’s about time, said the rest of the car world....
... Abandoned by the General in 2002, the Camaro was first resurrected as a concept car at the 2006 Detroit auto show, then very quickly sneaked into ‘Transformers’ and its sequel, provoking the expected Pavolvian salivation mechanism from a generation of males who came of age in the Nixon, Ford and Carter administrations. Now it’s also going to star in a new NBC drama, ‘My Own Worst Enemy,’ with Christian Slater behind the wheel.
Doubters aside, of course GM was going to build the thing, and of course it wasn’t going to mess with the design too much, since the concept was such a hit with fans. But GM came under considerable fire for taking so darn long to actually produce the new, retro-styled Camaro, that many lost their patience and went out and bought a retro-styled Ford Mustang or retro-styled Dodge Challenger. Indeed, early this year, Chrysler Vice Chairman Jim Press was bragging to everyone who would listen about how fast his company could put out a new version of an old car, straining mightily not to mention which product he was comparing his Challenger with.
His Challenger, it should be said, starts at $1,000 less than the Camaro ($21,320, plus $675 destination fee, to be exact). The Challenger R/T, which has a 5.7-liter V-8 and packs a Hemi (!), costs $30,315 and pumps out a mere 370 horses and 404 torques, which would seem to indicate that when it comes to horsepower, with Camaro you get a volume discount.
The Ford Mustang, with a 4-liter V-6, generates 210 hp and starts at $19,735, not including destination fees. The relatively parsimonious 4.6 liter V-8 on the Mustang GT is good for 300 horsepower and the car costs $26,425.
GM has started taking online orders for the car as of today. If you’re bound and determined, now might be a good time, because it’s a pretty safe bet that the first ones to hit dealership lots will sell for multiples of sticker price on EBay.
*Doesn’t really come with an eight-ball shifter. But with the way cars are selling these days, there’s not a dealer in the nation who wouldn’t put one on for you if that’s what you prefer.
-- Ken Bensinger
Photo of 2010 Camaro SS courtesy of General Motors