Camaro NOT coming

Australian muscle car enthusiasts may have a new reason to hate electric cars and hybrids. The right-hand-drive version of the iconic Chevrolet Camaro may not make it into Holden showrooms after all, bumped off General Motors' priority list to make way for a range of new economy cars.

In what could go down in history as the shortest automotive stillbirth, General Motors has canned the project less than six weeks after announcing it was on the cards.

At the Detroit motor show in January GM's product chief Bob Lutz told a room full of international media: "I think you can pretty much count on a right-hand-drive Camaro. The Camaro at some point will be factory right-hand-drive. That is what we are currently looking at ... with a great deal of focus, built in the plant in Canada and shipped to right-hand-drive markets from Canada."

But at the Geneva motor show overnight, when asked by the Carsales Network how the right-hand-drive Camaro was progressing, Lutz said: "Not good. It's been pushed back".

After joking that he gets in trouble whenever he talks to Australian media, Lutz elaborated: "When we looked at the product priorities, and all of the things we have to do over the next few years, it was determined that a right-hand-drive Camaro was not that high on the priority list.

"[Right-hand-drive Camaro] has kind of been off and on for some time. No matter which car company you work for, there's never enough engineering money, talent and capital to do everything you want to do.

"So when we looked at the hybrids that we have to do, and the plug-ins that we have to do, we just had to priority rank it and I couldn't argue with the priorities much."

GM's one-time product tzar said the projected sales numbers from the key right-hand-drive countries -- including Australia -- were weak.

"Unfortunately all of the markets came in with relatively low volume estimates. The UK was low, and ... frankly I think Australia could have stepped up to the plate with some more. But when we finally looked at it there weren't enough units to justify after all what is a fairly large investment."

Lutz said he was sad that GM couldn't afford the relatively modest investment (estimated to be significantly less than $US100 million) for the factory conversion.

"I am always personally sad when we create an exciting car and there's demand for it in an interesting country like Australia, and we can't afford it.

"It seems particularly ironic since all of the chassis development and the engineering was done there. It is basically a modification of the Zeta (Commodore) architecture, so it's doubly unfortunate.

"If there is a country in the world that deserves to have the Camaro, it's Australia."

Unfortunate indeed. The conversion is a relatively simple one, as Lutz described in January: "Most of the parts are there. All we have to do really is reverse the instrument panel. All of the right hand drive bits are a given because of the Holden architecture."

Holden designed and engineered the Camaro in Australia on behalf of Chevrolet because it shares its core underpinnings with the Commodore, but the muscle car is made in Canada.

After the Detroit announcement the boss of Holden, Alan Batey, said: "I want the car as quickly as they can get it to me but [Chevrolet] have got some work to do to make it happen.

In Geneva, Lutz said about the handful of companies in Australia doing private conversions (not endorsed by General Motors): "they're going to have to gear up".

The silver lining in Lutz's dark cloud is that General Motors is still beavering away at reviving an export version of the Commodore, possibly as a Chevrolet.

"With (former Holden boss) Mark Reuss in charge of North America, he still has this deep connection to his time in Australia and he realises how good the vehicles are so I think he's going to dip into that quite a bit," Lutz said.

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