Holden Celebrates The Unveiling Of It's Camaro In Melbourne

[FBODYRULES]

the Australians are taking far too much credit for the car, they did help out but this is going too far:
"It was designed and engineered by Holden in Australia using a modified version of the VE Commodore platform and shares mechanical components including basic engines, transmissions and suspension."

thats the best picture of the production version I have seen, Infact it looks as good as the concept, which until now I didnt think it did as much.

[BBDOS CV8]

Originally Posted by AndrewGS

It will come to Australia and it will be a Chevrolet, just like the C7 Corvette. It will be sold through the Premium Channel with Hummer, Cadillac and Saab. This will be the case in other parts of the world as well. Oh, and the RHD model will roll of the same Oshawa, Ontario line as the LHD.

I highly doubt GM will spend $millions to engineer the C7 RHD when the major RHD markets (England and Japan) both allow LHD cars registration. This can't be long coming here, by hook or by crook - maybe when the Oz car industry dies. Even if they were available RHD, at the $100K+ price they would command by the time they were modified for our ADRs they would sell five or ten a year.

As far as the Camaro - I can't see Holden trying to sell V6s - they couldn't move CV6 Monaros, even at $15K (25%) less than a CV8. Total production over Series 1 and Series 11 was 300 cars, or about 5%. If they sell a V8 you can be guaranteed it will be the SS, and I would expect it to cost $65-75K, once the luxury car tax was added - remember it will be very limited volumes.

As far as building them here? Not likely. The Monaro shells were hand-welded in jigs offline in the paint shop, as were all the LWB cars including Statos, Utes, Wagons, Crewmans in the paint shop until VZ, then dropped them back into the line for drivetrains and interiors. It caused enormous disruption to normal assembly - it's been estimated Holden could build 3-4 sedans for every Monaro. Same with GTO assembly, which was as much of a curse as a blessing.

The VE/WM all go down the line together and are autobot welded which is why they are all on the same floorpan stamping and the Ute and Stato get their extra wheelbase from offset suspension members. That tooling is not made for the Camaro wheelbase/bodyshell, and on the tiny volume of Oz sales (optimistically in the hundreds a year longterm) they'd never bother building them here - just to inventory the parts would be a major pain in the ring.

Originally Posted by FBODYRULES

the Australians are taking far too much credit for the car, they did help out but this is going too far:

My, my - tetchy. Did your woolly girlfriend knock you back last night?

Check out this fake ad campaign to convince Oz we should invade New Zealand:

100% There for the Taking

They should add '0% Car Industry'

[SpaceCowboy]

Alright, alright - lets all settle down a bit. So far we know Holden has expressed interest in bringing the Camaro here to be badged as a Chev, considering the changing market I'd expect a V6 would be part of that plan, but the low volumes it will sell in mean it will probably be expensive, so Give it maybe 12 months then go pester your Saab/Caddy/Hummer dealer.

As for the Aussie involvement, there have been plenty of mules spied around the place here. The car is based on a version of the VE Commodore's Zeta platform and Holden has been labelled GM's centre for real wheel drive engineering so from that side of things, I'd say they played a fairly large role. Of course the design comes from an americal crayon twirler and the final validation and calibration would have been done in the US but I wouldn't play down the Aussie influence.

Without the VE GM wouldn't have been able to justify the development costs of a new RWD platform for this car alone so even if you did get it it may have been an epsilon based FWD or more likely it wouldn't have happened at all.

Anyway enough of that - this is an exciting car and I'd love to see them sold here. It's just a shame the tail light treatment gets spoiled by the orange indicators, and I'd have thought they could find a neater way to integrate the reverse lights and reflectors. But at the end of the day it's still a lot closer to the concept than I expected which is a good thing!

[NZ_HOLDEN_FAN]

why isn't it letting me paste my pic up does any body have a clue why it isn't working

[mang01]

Originally Posted by BBDOS CV8

I highly doubt GM will spend $millions to engineer the C7 RHD when the major RHD markets (England and Japan) both allow LHD cars registration. This can't be long coming here, by hook or by crook - maybe when the Oz car industry dies. Even if they were available RHD, at the $100K+ price they would command by the time they were modified for our ADRs they would sell five or ten a year.

As far as the Camaro - I can't see Holden trying to sell V6s - they couldn't move CV6 Monaros, even at $15K (25%) less than a CV8. Total production over Series 1 and Series 11 was 300 cars, or about 5%. If they sell a V8 you can be guaranteed it will be the SS, and I would expect it to cost $65-75K, once the luxury car tax was added - remember it will be very limited volumes.

As far as building them here? Not likely. The Monaro shells were hand-welded in jigs offline in the paint shop...

Totally agree with your points on this. Not to mention the DI V6 is not available here (yet?) - too expensive and complicated to add the infrastructure to support it without it sharing availability with the Commodore - you'd expect the (L99 6.2 auto) might turn up when Holden/HSV eventually releases AFM here (and what's the holdup with offering AFM on the 6.0 here? You'd think with the bad press this week http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/s...9-2682,00.html they'd be doing everything they could to get some better figures).

Originally Posted by BBDOS CV8

...as were all the LWB cars including Statos, Utes, Wagons, Crewmans in the paint shop until VZ, then dropped them back into the line for drivetrains and interiors.

When I went thru the plant a handful of years back (just prior to the VY debut) the WH Statos and VX wagons were being autobot welded on the same machinery as the SWB sedans - the utes and V2 coupes were built on a hand weld line and then joined the main line. LHD and HSV bound cars had a little hat on their roof to indicate that there were special.

Originally Posted by BBDOS CV8

... on the tiny volume of Oz sales (optimistically in the hundreds a year longterm) they'd never bother building them here - just to inventory the parts would be a major pain in the ring.

Suspect you're spot on on this point.

[rkuk2k]

Saw a black Cabriolet version of this wet-weather testing next to Telstra Dome in Melbourne on Friday... Unfortunately didn't get the chance to get my phone out and take a photo (saw it a little too late) It did look quite good!

[Aych Es Vee]

Originally Posted by BBDOS CV8

and on the tiny volume of Oz sales (optimistically in the hundreds a year longterm) they'd never bother building them here - just to inventory the parts would be a major pain in the ring.

I mentioned that building of them here originally, in that the ones built here could be sent off to Japan, New Zealand and the UK. Not just made for the low volume Aussie sales.
And although I mentioned it, its not something I believe is likely at all.

[RedVee8]

Originally Posted by AndrewGS

It will come to Australia and it will be a Chevrolet, just like the C7 Corvette. It will be sold through the Premium Channel with Hummer, Cadillac and Saab. This will be the case in other parts of the world as well. Oh, and the RHD model will roll of the same Oshawa, Ontario line as the LHD.

Thats good.
Holden for mass market, GMInternational for premium.

[roteague]

Originally Posted by BBDOS CV8

I highly doubt GM will spend $millions to engineer the C7 RHD when the major RHD markets (England and Japan) both allow LHD cars registration. This can't be long coming here, by hook or by crook - maybe when the Oz car industry dies.

Doesn't the Northern Territory allow LHD registration? Or, is that only a concession to the American military stationed there?

[Robert Ryan]

Doesn't the Northern Territory allow LHD registration? Or, is that only a concession to the American military stationed there?

Only for the US military in that restricted area.

[mikmak]

Originally Posted by BBDOSCV8

As far as the Camaro - I can't see Holden trying to sell V6s - they couldn't move CV6 Monaros, even at $15K (25%) less than a CV8. Total production over Series 1 and Series 11 was 300 cars, or about 5%. If they sell a V8 you can be guaranteed it will be the SS, and I would expect it to cost $65-75K, once the luxury car tax was added - remember it will be very limited volumes.

Don't forget that it was a different climate (fuel prices and perceived social conscience) back then and the CV6 had a **** donk that was auto only. Still, I have heard the DIHFV6 isn't exactly syrupy smooth either. Although, I do agree that we haven't really had the Pony car segment history of the US.

[eb110americana]

You be the judge. It has the SS hood scoop, unique lower grillwork, more blocky front spoiler, flares around the foglights, but no SS badge or projector lights. It could be the SS or just a pre-production mule. See:

http://www.autoblog.com/2008/07/23/c...-with-lineage/

Gallery (just the first 5 shots):

http://www.autoblog.com/photos/2010-...l/941383/full/

[Ambalanche]

I think that's the SS without the RS pkg. That pkg is supposed to add the Projector beams and halos among other things but the SS comes with the 20's standard if I read all that correctly the other day. So I'm calling it a base SS.

[Ssom]

Originally Posted by BBDOS CV8;1462724
[URL="http://youtube.com/watch?v=vo6fgZ-dbOw"

100% There for the Taking[/url]

They should add '0% Car Industry'

Meh, most NZers are more concerned about 0% Robbie Deans. Sif a car industry could survive in a small isolated country.

[eb110americana]

Originally Posted by eb110americana

You be the judge. It has the SS hood scoop, unique lower grillwork, more blocky front spoiler, flares around the foglights, but no SS badge or projector lights. It could be the SS or just a pre-production mule. See:

http://www.autoblog.com/2008/07/23/c...-with-lineage/

Gallery (just the first 5 shots):

http://www.autoblog.com/photos/2010-...l/941383/full/

I understand that GMI has something like 479 new Camaro threads already, so it's important to par things down. However, I think the first images of the SS V8 we all hoped to see on Monday deserve better than being hidden at the bottom of a 3 day old thread where no one will find them. So far, the RS V6 is all that has been unveiled, I think some people might actually want to see this. What do you guys think?