Camaro to live-on… Another chance for Australia?

The reborn Camaro will become embedded in the Chevrolet line-up, rather than be relegated to a one-off model, says the man who led the design of GM's modern muscle car. And the good news is the succession plan means the Camaro will have another chance to broaden its horizons to right-hand-drive markets such as Australia.

The design boss of General Motors, Ed Welburn, told motoring.com.au at the Frankfurt motor show overnight that the company is planning a successor to the car that was jointly developed by Holden and is a Commodore twin under the skin.

"There will be a successor," Ed Welburn told motoring.com.au.

When asked if it would be engineered for right-hand-drive, given that those plans were axed on the current Camaro in the midst of the global financial crisis, he said:

"I can't go there but all I know is that Camaro is a very iconic vehicle that has a lot of fans all around the world."

Sales of the Ford Mustang were overtaken by the Camaro in 2010 after a 24-year run as North America's top selling sportscar – and the Camaro has increased its lead in 2011.

The strong sales have given GM the incentive to develop a new generation Camaro. Now Welburn says designers are wrestling with where to take the styling of the next model, given that the current car is so heavily inspired by the 1969 classic (which Welburn happens to own).

"We must protect and we must do the absolute right thing with [the next Camaro]," he said.

"You don't want to get into a rut. It's an iconic design that is very recognisable and you want it to continue to be very recognisable, but you don't want to get into this rut where it looks kind of dated."

He said the next generation Camaro would still have classic muscle-car design cues, and not resemble the spaceship-inspired editions of the 1980s and '90s.

"It will build on the success of the car we have today but will be recognised as being a very new car, whenever that day is."

Although the original Camaro concept was done in GM's Detroit design studios, the finishing touches on the production version were done at Holden in Melbourne.

Holden also did much of the engineering and chassis work on the Camaro as it shares much of its underpinnings with the Commodore.

Welburn would not be drawn on how far Holden's involvement would stretch on the new generation Camaro, or if it would continue to share its underpinnings with the Commodore. However, the design boss did say Holden's studio in Melbourne was working on three major "non-Commodore" projects that will go on to become global GM models.

"There may be a couple of surprises coming out of Holden soon," he said.

"There was one [design] proposal that they had that was the winner of a competition, and now it's under development somewhere else.

"There's a second one that is under development and then a third one that we're toying with. It's so different to the kind of work that they've done in the past. [Holden designers are] a very creative team … who know and love cars."

Welburn said the global model that Holden designed was still "a couple of years away" from becoming a showroom reality and Holden's involvement in it will have to remain under wraps until then.