Chevrolet Really Needs To Make A Big Deal About The Last Camaros
(The Gas Station is where American Cars And Racing Executive Editor Gary Gastelu vents his opinions. Feel free to let us know if you think they stink.)
The Chevrolet Camaro is not long for this world.
The iconic American sports car is set to go out of production by January.
Perhaps sooner.
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This will be the second time in its history that the Camaro name has been put on hiatus without an immediate successor, the last break coming between 2002 and 2010.
Photos have already surfaced online of a sixth-generation Camaro convertible going down the line at the Lansing Grand River Assembly Plant with a note on it indicating it was the last one that will ever be built.
That was on November 22, which a previous report said was exactly when convertible production was scheduled to end, while the coupe would follow on December 7.
Chevrolet refuses to confirm or deny that convertible production is done and on December 6 would only tell American Cars And Racing that Camaro production was ending “soon.”
You might argue that the car started dying in 2019, which was the last time it saw a significant update, while the Dodge Challenger and Ford Mustang have left it in the dust on the sales charts, thanks in part to a slew of fresh models and an entire new Mustang generation.
The current Challenger and Dodge Charger might beat the Camaro to the afterlife, as they are going out of production by December 31, but with a much bigger bang.
Dodge launched six limited edition Last Call trims to celebrate its 15-year production run and capped things off with the 1,025 horsepower Challenger SRT Demon 170, which will likely go down in history as the most-powerful V8-powered muscle car ever built.
Even Chrysler got into the act with the 300C that’s built alongside the Dodges and is also being discontinued, by bringing the 6.4-liter Hemi V8 back to the sedan for the first time since 2014.
All 2,200 of the 300Cs that were offered sold out in 12 hours, and the last one rolled off the assembly line on December 8 with much fanfare and a merch drop in Chrysler’s Amazon store.
The best salute Chevrolet could muster for the Camaro is a Collector Edition, which is a paint and stickers package available across the lineup.
It has a Panther theme referencing the code name used by the Camaro program when it was under development in the 1960s, rather than the legendary Ford Crown Victoria platform the name is typically associated with today.
This in the same year that the Camaro had one of its greatest triumphs, when NASCAR and Hendrick Motorsports sent a modified Cup Series car to the 24 Hours of Le Mans as an exhibition and absolutely stole the show at the centenary running of the historic event.
There won’t be any model surprises before Chevy wraps things up at the factory, but it’s missing a huge opportunity if it doesn’t play things up more than it has so far.
Images of the last Camaro, if they are even released, will be on every automotive website and publication, giving Chevrolet a huge stage to make a statement.
What should that statement be? How about announcing what, if anything, will replace the Camaro? So far, it’s only said “this is not the end of Camaro’s story.”
What better time to start writing the rest of it than when you have the world’s attention?
The original Hot Wheels car deserves it.
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