Camaro

IKTR x0

Shared Fandragon with GrandAccolade~ might leave the garage and return to the garage with no warning


"Before any official announcement, reports began running during April 1965 within the automotive press that Chevrolet was preparing a competitor to the Ford Mustang, code-named Panther. On June 21, 1966, around 200 automotive journalists received a telegram from General Motors stating, "...please save noon of June 28 for important SEPAW meeting. Hope you can be on hand to help scratch a cat. Details will follow...(signed) John L. Cutter – Chevrolet public relations – SEPAW secretary." The following day, the same journalists received another General Motors telegram stating, "Society for the Eradication of Panthers from the Automotive World will hold first and last meeting on June 28...(signed) John L. Cutter – Chevrolet public relations SEPAW secretary." These telegrams puzzled automotive journalists.

On June 28, 1966, General Motors held a live press conference in Detroit's Statler-Hilton Hotel. It was the first time that 14 cities were connected in real-time for a press conference via telephone lines. Chevrolet general manager Pete Estes started the news conference stating that all attendees of the conference were charter members of the Society for the Elimination of Panthers from the Automotive World and that this would be the first and last meeting of SEPAW. Estes then announced a new car line, project designation XP-836, with a name that Chevrolet chose in keeping with other car names beginning with the letter C such as the Corvair, Chevelle, Chevy II, and Corvette. He claimed the name, "suggests the comradeship of good friends as a personal car should be to its owner" and that "to us, the name means just what we think the car will do... go." The Camaro name was then unveiled. Automotive press asked Chevrolet product managers, "what is a Camaro?" and were told it was "a small, vicious animal that eats Mustangs," an obvious reference to the extremely successful Ford Mustang that created and dominated the Pony car market GM was entering.

According to the book The Complete Book of Camaro: Every Model Since 1967, the name Camaro was conceived by Chevrolet merchandising manager Bob Lund and General Motors vice president Ed Rollett, while they were reading the book Heath's French and English Dictionary by James Boïelle and by de V. Payen-Payne printed in 1936. In the book The Complete Book of Camaro, it states that Mr. Lund and Mr. Rollett found the word camaro in the French-English dictionary was slang, to mean "friend, pal, or comrade". The article further repeated Estes's statement of what the word camaro was meant to imply, that the car's name "suggests the comradeship of good friends, as a personal car should be to its owner". The accepted French word with the closest meaning is "camarade," from which the English word "comrade" is derived.

The Camaro was first shown at a press preview in Detroit on September 12, 1966, and later in Los Angeles, on September 19, 1966. Public introduction of the new model was on September 26, 1966. The Camaro officially went on sale in dealerships on September 29, 1966, for the 1967 model year.

The first-generation was available in Super Sport, Rally Sport, and beginning in December 1966 the high-performance Z/28, models. It came with stripes on the hood and trunk (that could be optioned-out at no charge), styled rally road wheels, and a special 302 cu in (4.9 L) V8 engine that had been developed for Trans Am series racing. Front vent windows disappeared and safety side marker lights appeared in 1968."

"In the mid-2000s, Chevrolet was preparing to bring the Camaro nameplate back from the dead with a fifth generation of the muscle car icon.

Ahead of the production reveal, the Camaro earned a starring role in the first of Michael Bay's Transformers movies as the vehicle mode of the Autobot Bumblebee. The original 2007 movie, "Transformers," ignited a firestorm of popularity surrounding the car, which even led to Chevrolet introducing its own Bumblebee Edition cars.

The original "Transformers" film featured a car based on a Camaro concept and largely previewed the production car launched for 2010. Bumblebee received a slight update for "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" before the second Bumblebee, based on a 2010 Camaro, made its debut in "Transformers: Dark of the Moon."

A 2013 Camaro provided the basis for Bumblebee's first major redesign in "Transformers: Age of Extinction," which introduced slimmer headlights and a reworked front and rear fascia. Again, these updates previewed a refreshed fifth-generation Camaro to come, especially at the rear.

The final Bumblebee part of the collection headed to auction is the 2016 model from "Transformers: The Last Knight." This Bumblebee is by far the wildest of them all with lots of added aerodynamic pieces on the exterior. And, as others did, the car previewed the refreshed sixth-generation Camaro that debuted last year. So that's it~ the entire Transformer movie franchise is a GM commercial. I can get behind that, fam"

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Chevrolet Camaro
1966-Present Day (again, or at least until 2024~



Original Bumblebee from the first Transformers movie~

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