Camaro Comeback?

The Camaro – which GM cancelled two years ago after a failed reboot – after a previously unbroken production run going all the way back to 1967 – may be coming back. GM’s president, Mark Reuss, hinted at it recently and said, specifically, that if it happens, a new Camaro would be “functional” and “fun.”

This implies the last Camaro – the 2024 model – was neither.

It certainly wasn’t functional. It had back seats in name only. It had less room for things inside than a Corvette, which is a two-seater. So why even bother with the just-for-looks back seats?

But it was fun.

Especially the SS – with the V8, which was available with a six speed manual transmission. Even the base trim – which came with a 3.6 liter V6 – was stronger (and quicker) than most of the V8 Camaros of the classic era, including the 1967 Z28. The latter’s 302 cubic inch V8 touted all of 290 horsepower; the ’24 Camaro’s V6 made 335.

Chevy allowed buyers to have the base V6 engine with a six speed manual, too. Contra Ford, which forces buyers who want fun to buy a V8 GT because the base trim 2026 Mustang comes only with a turbo four paired only with an automatic.

Why Reuss would imply the last Camaro wasn’t fun is hard to figure.

The last Camaro’s real flaw was its price. Which started at $30,900 back in 2024. That’s too much for the majority of Camaro buyers, who are mostly guys under 35 – and that makes it not very fun. It is like the girl you dare not ask out for a date because she’s out of your league.

Some wayback time is warranted, to make the point.

Let’s go back to the mid-late 1970s, when the Camaro was hugely popular. It seemed every third car was a Camaro – or a Firebird, the Camaro’s Pontiac cousin. Probably because it was. In 1978 Chevy sold 272,631 Camaros. To put that in some perspective, it is comparable to the number of F-150 pick-ups that Ford sells today, when you take into account the population then (about 220 million) vs. now (more than 320 million). To say it sold well is like saying the Germans did well during the first few months of the war against Russia.

It sold well for one reason – beyond the fact that it was a good-looking and fun-to-drive car that almost everyone liked.

It was a car almost anyone could afford.

Startlingly so – relative to what the last (2024) Camaro sold for. In 1978, the Camaro’s base price was $4,414. If you plug this into the government’s inflation calculator – which probably downplays just how much inflation has cost us over the years, in terms of the dollar’s diminished buying power – you get $22,813.

That is at least ten grand less in actual dollar buying-power then vs. now.

What will $22k buy today? It is just barely enough to get you into you something like a 2026 Hyundai Venue, which is a subcompact crossover and that brand’s least expensive model. The Venue is not a bad little runabout – but it’s not a Camaro.

Back in ’78, you could get a brand-new Camaro for that kind of money.

It didn’t have power windows, locks or AC for that money. But that was just the point. You could get it without those things and so for not that much money. Almost anyone working a full-time job can afford a $22k new car and that is why – back in ’78 – a lot of people were driving around in a new Camaro.

Even the top Camaro – the Z28 – only cost $5,603 back in ’78. The BLS inflation calculator says that sum back then has buying power equivalent to $29,035 today. In other words, back in ’78, it cost less (in real terms) to buy a Z28 Camaro than it cost in 2024 to buy a base trim Camaro.

Forget the V8 powered SS.

That model stickered for $40,866 in 2024.

It’s true the ’24 SS Camaro had a larger 6.2 liter V8 that boasted more than twice the power (455 horsepower) touted by the ’78 Z28’s 5.7 liter V8, which only ginned up 190 horsepower. But what is the point of all that power if you can’t afford it? This is such a simple point, yet it has been lost over the years since ’78. The last Camaro SS was basically a supercar, with more power and more ferocious acceleration than the Ferraris and Lamborghinis of the ’70s – and ’80s, for that matter. But that kind of fun is also priced accordingly. What made the Z28 of the ’70s a different kind of fun was that almost anyone could afford one.

Especially a used one.

I know, because I owned two of them. A ’78 and an ’80 Z28. I owned them in the ’80s, when I was in high school and college. Back then a high school/college-aged kid could afford a six or seven year old Camaro because by the time these Camaros were six or seven years old, they’d depreciated to less than half their new car value, then as now. Thus, a ’78 Z28 that cost $5,603 new could be had for about $2,500 used – and as anyone who was there at the time can attest, it wasn’t that big a lift for a young guy in his early ’20s to swing a $2,500 used car.

That’s why Camaros were once as common as crossovers are today.

Could GM do the same today?

GM could certainly try. The problem is compliance costs are a real thing. Federal regs say all new cars must have air bags and so the car would have to be designed around these things – as well as other federally required rigamarole. But why not try striking while the iron is hot? Trump has done all but said the federal regs should be ignored. Why not just ignore them – and build some cars like they used to make ’em? It’s not much of a gamble because it is doubtful Trump would sic the government on them for doing so. He might just be hoping at least one major car company will grow a pair and build cars for the market rather than to comply with the government.

If GM were to do it – and our hypothetical reboot of the ’78 Camaro were to become available for what a ’78 Camaro cost – and the thing sold like the ’78 Camaro sold, it’d be damned hard for the government to do much about it. Especially if the government doesn’t want to do much about it.

This is what’s known as an opportunity.

I hope Mark Reuss is listening. Maybe he can duct tape Mary Barra – GM’s CEO – in the closet for as long as it takes to get a new ’78 Camaro in Chevy showrooms for around $23k.

. . .

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