Quote:
Originally Posted by !LittleDragon
Brand recognition is why the Mustang was saved from the culling of Fords passenger cars and they saved it to turn it into an SUV. Challengers, Chargers and Camaros are not sports cars, they just took existing platforms and put big motors in them. Change they styling a bit and you have a pony/muscle car. The Camaro's platform is the same one in pretty much every Cadillac sedan. Those MIGHT be profitable because the shared platform reduces R&D costs but FCA doesn't show profitability for individual cars. Rumour is, GM is scrapping the Camaro again. Probably don't want a second money losing car along with the Corvette.
The Corvette is interesting. It can be profitable but GM doesn't charge enough for it to be. More expensive versions would bring more profit but the volume isn't there. GM expects to lose money on every Corvette under $80k.
https://www.motor1.com/news/385310/g...lowing%20years. |
Say what you want with the Mustangs and Chargers/Challengers, but Camaros are very much blurring the lines between sports cars and pony cars. The SS can very well keep up with the M4 and the ZL1 1LE is a track beast. Even the performance Mustangs are not too bad when it comes to handling.
Camaro shares the platform with ATS and CTS, which had their own high performance versions(ATS-V and CTS-V). Alpha chassis is a very solid platform.
The way Camaro works now is that it's a parts bin car. It uses Cadillac platforms(and therefore made in the same plant, Lancing River), uses the Corvette engine, and other parts are also shared with other GM cars. The ignition button and volume controls on the steering wheel are the same as a C7 Corvette. I am aware of the rumours, let's hope it's not true.
I think economy of scale is pretty much the answer to why Japanese manufacturers can't bring performance cars like Europeans and Americans. Europeans sell fewer cars at a premium to ensure profit, while Americans sell more cars that share a lot of parts with their other products. Pony car V8 engines are basically just upgraded truck engines, which sell in millions. Japanese can't play the premium card as well as the Europeans, while their focus is also not on V8 engines.
And the Bubble Economy probably left a very bitter taste in the mouths of Japanese manufacturers when it bursted and made them very cautious with selling sports cars now.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Traum
The engine is adequate, and I'd expect it to work quite nicely for street use, but a larger displacement will almost certainly make it less eager to rev and revs are fun.
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Revs are fun... If there is adequate displacement to support it. I drove a Mustang GT recently and the Gen 3 Coyote is pretty solid. 5.0 with a 7.5k RPM redline with decently strong low-end as well.
Having piss-poor low-end torque is not fun if you plan to daily drive, especially considering most family cars are turbocharged/hybrid nowadays and they would be pulling ahead of you when you are still building up revs. Trust me, when I had my RX-8, I loved revving to 9k RPM, but you can't always do that and it just gets annoying in daily driving to always
have to rev high.