Both Lines Made in Van Nuys : GM Hints at Reprieve for Camaro, Firebird
General Motors Corp. is signaling that the Chevrolet Camaro and its sister sports car, the Pontiac Firebird, which are built in Van Nuys, might get extended lives after all.
GM’s chief stylist, Chuck Jordan, said designs for the next-generation of the Camaro and Firebird, known at GM as “F-cars,” are complete and have moved to the engineering- and manufacturing-feasibility stage.
The cars, which likely would appear in the early 1990s, retain their rear-drive transmissions in the new designs, Jordan said Wednesday in an interview with United Press International.
The cars’ future could determine the future of the Van Nuys plant, which employs about 4,000 workers and is Southern California’s last major auto factory.
GM Chairman Roger B. Smith also told UPI that the “F-car is not dead by any means.” But he indicated that other new car projects are more critical to GM’s profits and market share, and that the F-car’s price and market position are still being determined.
“How much profit do you make from a given set of resources?” Smith said. “What we’re doing is looking at it with everything else.”
Sales Decline
Earlier this month, Lloyd Reuss, GM’s executive vice president in charge of North American automotive operations, had revived speculation that the Camaro and Firebird might be abandoned. In an interview with the trade journal Automotive News, Reuss said the next-generation F-car was stalled in the early planning stages and that a plan to drop the car from GM’s lineup “has to be an option.”
The cars’ sales have declined sharply in the past decade and are less than half their peak reached in 1978. The cars’ designs have also not been dramatically changed since 1982.
Reuss said GM was concerned about whether stricter fuel-economy standards and emission-control regulations in the future might further affect sales of the high-performance Camaro and Firebird.
Even if GM builds a new generation of F-cars, it has not yet decided whether they will be built in Van Nuys.
