Chevrolet Camaro may live on

The Chevrolet Camaro may not be dead and buried after all.

General Motors’ internal design studio has just released an official sketch of a sleek coupe – complete with what appears to be a pair of huge exhaust outlets – that could preview its intention to retain its iconic muscle car.

Reports from the US insist the Camaro, in its current coupe form at least, will be axed next year and replaced with a four-door electric sedan a year later in 2025.

This new sketch posted to the official General Motors Design Instagram page suggests GM is not yet ready to leave the Ford Mustang to its own devices.

Sketched by GM creative designer, Casey Swanseger, the sleek-looking coupe features a super-low roofline, extra-long bonnet, huge wheels, short rear overhang and a heavily stylised take on the Camaro’s trademark tail-light design.

There’s a distinct taste of Corvette in there as well, particularly the rear window and tail-lights. Indeed one commenter suggests it depicts a Corvette-badged EV sports car.

Perhaps the most telling element in the design preview, however, is the inclusion of large trapezoidal tailpipes, suggesting the Camaro will not morph into an electric vehicle after all.

GM recently confirmed it will invest more than a billion dollars to develop and build a new-generation petrol V8 to power the next-generation Chevy Silverado and Corvette.

While the US car-maker has not clarified its position on the next Camaro, there’s now evidence to suggest it could continue as a V8-powered coupe.

The next-generation S650-series Ford Mustang will continue to offer V8 engines, while the Dodge Challenger’s replacement will be fully electric.

Chevrolet is clearly attempting to drum up some positivity around the Camaro, which has struggled to attract as many customers as its arch-rivals in its key North American in recent years.

While the Chevy Camaro found less than 25,000 homes in the US in 2022, the Mustang attracted almost double the number of buyers with almost 48,000 sales, while the Dodge Challenger was North America’s top-selling muscle car last year with just over 55,000 sales.

Although it will do battle with the new Mustang in the 2023 Supercars championship, the current Chevrolet Camaro hasn’t been officially sold in Australia since GMSV replaced HSV as Australia’s official performance and specialty vehicle distributor in 2020.

Walkinshaw Automotive produced about 1200 2SS and 320 Supercharged ZL1 versions of the outgoing Camaro for its sister company HSV between late 2018 and early 2020.

But it has said more remanufactured Camaros are unlikely and it remains to be seen whether a next-generation model would become available in Australia.

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