GM Putting Flex in Muscle Car

When it brings back the Chevrolet Camaro muscle car in a few years, General Motors Corp. hopes that it will attract younger buyers as well as appeal to its traditional customers who want to roar down the highway.

GM’s top executive said Thursday that the new version of the Detroit icon would appeal to car enthusiasts yet be more fuel-efficient and sophisticated than the 1969 version on which it is loosely based.

The new rear-wheel-drive car, with more aerodynamic styling than its predecessor, is due to hit showrooms in early 2009. Plans call for it to have automatic and manual transmissions and six- and eight-cylinder engine options to appeal to many buyers, Chairman and Chief Executive Rick Wagoner said.

The decision to build a car that harks back to GM’s heyday comes as the automaker struggles in a market beset by foreign competitors. GM lost $3.2 billion in the second quarter, mainly because of employee buyouts and other restructuring costs. Its July sales were off 22% from a year earlier, led by declining demand for pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles.

Wagoner said the Camaro had technology that made it “much more than a greatlooking V-8 muscle car.”

“It will give the option of increased fuel economy with the additional engine and transmission choices,” he said here at an industry conference.

GM has estimated that a Camaro concept car equipped with a manual transmission and a V-8 engine that uses only four cylinders at highway speeds could get 30 or more miles per gallon of gasoline.

Wagoner said the company expected to sell 100,000 Camaros a year, fewer than Ford Motor Co.’s remade Mustang. Ford sold about 101,000 Mustangs this year through July. The original Mustang was the Camaro’s chief competitor from the 1960s through the end of its run in 2002.

The new Camaro was engineered in Australia and will be built in North America, Wagoner said at the Center for Automotive Research’s Management Briefing Seminars. The price will be announced later, he said.

In its return to showrooms the Camaro will follow the Mustang and DaimlerChrysler’s Challenger as the domestic automakers try to tap nostalgia to rekindle enthusiasm for their brands.

But the muscle cars are going on sale as buyers are turning to smaller, more fuel-efficient cars and hybrid gasoline-electric vehicles to combat sustained high pump prices.

Despite gasoline prices that by some predictions could rise to $4 a gallon, the Camaro will sell, said Jim Sanfilippo, senior industry analyst for Automotive Marketing Consultants Inc. of Bloomfield Hills, Mich.

“Four-dollar gas isn’t going to mitigate people’s wishes to look good in their vehicles,” he said, adding that Americans wanted fuel efficiency but that they also wanted their cars to stand out.

Analysts have said that cars such as the Camaro are important because they build excitement for a particular brand.

Still, GM and Chevrolet have to do much more to succeed, Sanfilippo said, mainly proving to customers that they can compete in the mid-size sedan market with Toyota Motor Corp.’s Camry and Honda Motor Co.’s Accord, which now dominate the segment.

The Camaro rekindles a passion and spirit for Chevrolet, unlike the bland Malibu, Chevrolet’s current entry in the mid-size market, he said.

Wagoner said the company had an all-new Malibu and new mid-size crossover vehicles in the product pipeline.

Sanfilippo said the new Malibu would have to look good and compete with the Japanese on quality and performance.

“People will run under the Chevrolet umbrella in a heartbeat if they deliver,” he said.

GM unveiled the Camaro in January as a concept vehicle at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.

Chevrolet introduced the Camaro in 1967.