Chevrolet Camaro concept on Miami Speedway. Picture: Joshua Dowling
The Miami Speedway grandstand usually holds 65,000 race fans but today the place is deserted, except for a small group who've assembled to test-drive Chevrolet's Camaro concept car. It's the same handbuilt vehicle that was driven onto centre stage at the Detroit motor show last year, right down to the slick push-pull door handles.
To say we have to be careful is a gross understatement. And we won't be able to gather an insight into how the real thing will drive when it goes on sale in 2008, for there is little to be gleaned from a brief drive around the perfectly smooth 2.4-kilometre oval at a maximum speed of 50kmh.
Besides, it should feel familiar - under the Camaro's sharply creased flanks it's all Holden. While the exterior and interior are glitz and glamour, a peek under the concept car reveals there's solid foundation underneath: the 2006 Commodore.
There are two good reasons to resist the urge to squeeze the right foot during my three-minute test-drive.
First, you wouldn't want to be the person who put a scratch on a $3 million concept car. The second reason is Chris, whose imposing frame makes you think he should be called The Hulk. He's sitting in the front passenger's seat making sure the privileged few don't get carried away. He seems to have developed his well-formed frame with a diet of hot dogs, doughnuts and a lack of exercise. He doesn't like jokes or anyone who might harm this car. "No swerving, no high revs," he says without a smile.
After a brief rundown on how to start the car the Camaro kicks into life. The tough burble from the V8's twin exhausts belies the concept Camaro's fragility.
The paint on the hand-finished alloy start-stop switch is wearing thin from its frequent use, a lap-only seatbelt has been hastily added to the driver's seat, having been designed without space for one, the side mirrors are just for show and the indicators don't work. More importantly, neither does the speedometer. Any thoughts of pleading ignorance, though, evaporate with a glance at the navigator.
"Move along here, change gears early and keep to the right of the safety cones," Chris says with a deep, gravelly voice. "I can tell how fast you're going by listening to the engine."
The clutch is heavy and the gearbox is just plain stubborn. Second gear doesn't feel like second gear, it feels as if the lever has travelled only half the distance it ought to. So I press the clutch pedal again and repeat the motion to be sure it's where it should be.
Letting the clutch out tentatively, I say: "Wouldn't be a good look, kangaroo-hopping along here," not realising that this is probably not a common term in America.
"Hhnnggh," he grunts, and nods his head and points to the empty, banked oval ahead. Third and fourth gears are easier to find and after that I leave the gearbox and clutch alone.
Driving in a 50kmh zone feels slow at the best of times. The same speed on a racetrack where cars clock close to 300kmh feels as if rocks would form faster than we are moving.
The gearshift feels like a tennis ball made out of cold steel, even though it's alloy in this instance. A similar gearstick would be a nice touch on the real thing but, sadly, not likely.
The same goes for the trick interior switches and clever exterior door handles. One idea that might make it into the production car, though, is the seat rail design. Each rail splays outward to allow better foot room for rear passengers. The concept car is a four-seater and the real thing is expected to be the same.
The engine in the real car is yet to be confirmed. All General Motors (which owns the Chevrolet brand) is saying is that it will have ample grunt.
The show car is equipped with a 300kW, 6.0-litre V8 from the Chevrolet Corvette (the same engine found in the Holden Special Vehicles range). In the Camaro concept it has fuel-saving cylinder-shutdown technology, which is still under development. Under light throttle or downhill, up to four cylinders are deactivated, thus saving fuel. In cruising mode it can sip fuel at a rate of 7.8 litres/100km, the company says.
Time for us to shut down. As we round the final turn (the second of two gradual bends, that is) The Hulk warns me to stay high on the bank until the pavement levels out.
"Don't want to scrape the body," he says. I do as I'm told.
As we come into the pits, I am able to better feel the steering and, eventually, the brakes. After this less-than-thorough analysis I can tell you they both work.
The brakes feel good but they should do: they are borrowed from the Corvette (let's hope the brakes on the real car are like this).
The steering feels unusually light. The front wheels have been pushed forward by 50mm compared with the Commodore. This was done to allow a tighter steering angle for the Camaro's massive front wheels, said to be up to 22 inches in diameter.
It also explains why some of the assembled throng are keen to see how the steering feels and why it is high on The Hulk's list of Banned Things on the test-drive.
As he explains, the Camaro concept was never meant to be driven further than the few short metres onto the General Motors stand at the Detroit show.
The company let a handful of journalists from around the globe sample its showpiece because it wants the world to know about it. Car makers usually keep future models under wraps but GM wants to put the Camaro on the shopping list of anyone looking for a muscle car in the next year or so. More importantly, GM doesn't want customers to buy a similar car from its arch rival.
The Mustang is one of the few shining stars in the Ford line-up. In the United States its sales have turned around since the 2005 model was released, which just happened to look like a carbon copy of the popular 1968 model.
It must have been a special time in American muscle car history, or perhaps baby boomers simply have fond memories of that era, as this new Chevrolet is a re-interpretation of the 1969 Camaro.
There is a big difference this time around, though. The modern Camaro will be a much more global car. It will be designed and engineered in Australia, built in Canada and sold mostly in North America.
It's also likely to be sold in Australia. Officially, Holden is being coy about whether the Camaro will be made in right-hand-drive, let alone sold locally. But at the Detroit motor show last week, senior Holden officials were talking as if it were coming. And they have been for some time now.
When asked whether or not the Camaro would wear a Holden or a Chevrolet badge (or even be called a Monaro, as some have wondered), Holden's straight-shooting boss, Denny Mooney, quickly responded: "Oh, it'll have a Chevrolet badge and it'll be called Camaro. People in Australia know what this car is. You only have to look at the muscle car magazines to see the interest in the classic Camaros."
How Holden will shape the next Camaro
This may seem hard to believe but the finishing touches to the next Camaro are being done at Holden in Melbourne. A team of US designers and engineers have joined their Holden colleagues to transform the concept car into a reality.
Early prototypes have already begun testing on Melbourne roads but they're disguised as Commodores.
Just before Christmas, Holden's engineering division completed the first "body in white" - in layman's terms, the first body built to production specifications.
Disguised handbuilt prototypes of cars that look like the Camaro will be on Melbourne roads within the next few months. Some will be sent to the US for testing as well. Production in Canada is due to start early next year and we should see the Camaro in Australia by the end of 2008.
New versus oldGeneral Motors' head of global design, Ed Welburn, brought his 1969 Camaro into the company's styling studios in Detroit so his team could use it as a reference when designing the new one. Here, designer Micah Jones explains why the new Camaro looks the way it does.
"When we got word we were going to do a Camaro concept we were all pretty excited. We really had to think about what sort of heritage we wanted to have in this car. Ignoring Camaro's heritage would just be a huge mistake. We looked back at previous generations and tried to define the most iconic models and ultimately the original 1969 Camaro was selected because of its very pure lines, great stance and it was simple.
"The 1969 Camaro was also the inspiration for the interior as well.
"The goal for the Camaro was to interpret the design in a contemporary way and express the fact it's a rear-wheel-drive performance car. You see that a lot of the lines on it shoot back and send a lot of drama and a lot of motion back to the corner and explode onto the back wheels. It's what we like to call the Camaro corner. It's a really identifiable piece of design on this car, it's where all the angles come together.
"The shifter is a nice touch, which has been inspired by the heavy-duty Hurst shifters of the muscle-car era. It's got a polished chrome cap and a ball on the end of it. Pretty simple and pretty strong and purposeful. We've modernised it in the way it's been put together and the general execution.
"We're particularly proud of the general spirit of the car. It has a tremendous amount of personality. The front has a real menacing look to it.
"Tom Peters, the director of the Camaro's exterior design, told his design team to draw the meanest street dog you could possible draw. He was going for a really growling look to it. I overhead him talking one day while the car was being designed. He said: 'The car's coming along real good, it's starting to look like a growling doberman pinscher.' I thought that just nailed it on the head."source: smh
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