A Four Door Camaro? They Can't be Serious, Can They?

Rumors have been swirling for months that Chevrolet was reviving the Camaro nameplate as an EV-only, four-door sedan. The latest scuttlebutt suggests that while Chevrolet does appear serious about bringing the Camaro back, it won't be EV-only. In fact, current reports point toward a rear-wheel-drive, internal-combustion Camaro, with a turbocharged four-cylinder likely serving as the base engine and a V-8 available in higher-performance versions.

There's been speculation that GM's new-generation small-block V-8 could find its way under the Camaro's hood, although exactly which engine it would be—and how much power it would make—remain unknown. I've heard nothing credible about the twin-turbo 3.0-liter V-6 currently offered in the Cadillac CT5-V being part of the Camaro lineup. The latest musings out of Detroit also suggest that an EV version isn't part of the immediate plan, despite all the earlier rumors about an electric Camaro.

The real kicker is that GM appears to be hell-bent on making the next Camaro a four-door, with no definitive indication that a traditional two-door coupe will accompany it. Right now, "they're saying" the new Camaro is expected to ride on an updated version of GM's rear-wheel-drive Alpha architecture, share its underpinnings with the next Cadillac CT5 and a forthcoming Buick sedan, and enter production at Lansing Grand River in Michigan. The latest reports put it on track for the 2029 model year.

Seems like a last-ditch effort to revive "the automobile" as we once knew it. If this thing fails, my money is it will, looks like future highways will be filled with nothing but "trucks" 

Based on these A.I.-generated renderings, Chevrolet is going back to the "retro Camaro" well yet again, something it first did with the fifth-generation Camaro introduced for 2010. That car deliberately channeled the 1967–69 first-generation Camaro, particularly the iconic 1969 model. The sixth-generation Camaro, introduced for 2016, was essentially an evolution of that design rather than a clean-sheet departure.

The styling of the fifth- and sixth-generation Camaros has always left me flat-footed, though. I find them cartoonish in ways the first four generations of the Camaro simply weren't. Maybe that's just my old-car bias talking, but there's something about those later Camaros that never quite worked for me. They're great cars—my older son has a 2017, and despite its shortcomings, it's an amazing ride—but in terms of "look back at it after parking it" appeal? Meh. Not so much.

Don't tell him I told you that. I need him to pick out a nice nursing home for me. 

The auto industry is interested in one thing above all else: making money. Automakers aren't interested in nostalgia and tradition for old-time's sake. If they can move "units" because of a retro theme or design, they're going to do it. If they can't, they won't bother.

And the best-selling vehicles in the country don't have a shred of throwback about them. The Ford F-Series, Chevrolet Silverado, Toyota RAV4 and Honda CR-V are about as modern and utilitarian as it gets. The Toyota Camry, America's best-selling traditional passenger car in 2025, isn't exactly dripping with nostalgia, either.

And then there's Dodge's new Charger, which supposedly oozes old-school charm. I don't get it. Whatever nostalgia Dodge was shooting for, buyers haven't exactly been beating down the doors. Dodge sold 7,421 electric Charger Daytonas in 2025. There were also 2,141 gas-powered Chargers reported for the year, although that figure included some previous-generation cars still sitting around on dealer lots. The new gasoline-powered Sixpack arrived so late that it had essentially no impact on 2025 sales; production began in December.

I'll bet you a nickel the big sixer has little impact on sales.

Alas, stylish two-door cars, which were a staple of my car-crazed youth, have been falling out of favor for decades. Once pillars of the industry, today's surviving two-doors are mostly niche products—and many are expensive ones. Chevrolet sold 24,533 Corvettes in 2025, Ford sold 45,333 Mustangs, and Dodge's new Charger Daytona managed just 7,421 electric sales in its first calendar year.

Back in the 1970s, the combined sales of the Chevrolet Camaro, Pontiac Firebird and Ford Mustang could approach 900,000 in a single year. In 1979, for example, the three totaled roughly 864,000 sales. That's still an astonishing number compared with today's market, but it wasn't quite the million-plus figure my memory wanted it to be.

Frankly, the world didn't end when Ford labeled its first EV crossover "Mustang" back in 2021. Although, if I'm not mistaken, most people call it the "Mach-E" anyway. And "Mach"—a nod to the iconic Mach 1 Mustang—somehow seems less offensive than calling what's essentially a four-door crossover an actual Mustang. Ford, for its part, explicitly positioned the Mach-E as an expansion of the Mustang family and an all-electric member of the Mustang stable.

So, in the end, the world will be just fine if Chevrolet comes out with a four-door Camaro, even if it doesn't offer a two-door version. It doesn't necessarily mean Chevrolet will move a lot of Camaros if they have four doors, two doors, three doors, or if you have to jump through the sunroof to get inside them.

The market has moved so far away from sedans that it may be too far gone to come back.

The rational side of me totally gets it. The Camaro-lover in me, however, wants to jump out a window.

I mean, they can't be serious, can they? Newsflash, Camaro-boy. They can be. 

 

1969 Pontiac Firebird - Void Where Prohibited

This 1969 Pontiac Firebird reminds me of the bombed-out, rusty shells from my woe-be-gone, misbegotten youth. Thing is, this Facebook find has an asking price of some $7,500; that's all the money in the world for something that "needs everything" and is not a Trans Am.  

Junkers like this from back in the day had asking prices way more in line with the value of the dollar. If this came into my midst when I was 16 or 17 years old, I'd expect to pay around $1,000 for it. Maybe $1,500. Roughly $3,000 today give or take a five-hundred-bucks given the wonkiness of online, inflation calculators. Even so, back then it might have been money well spent since such a car would have punched my ticket to the "cool kids" table. Restore it? What? 

From 1967 through 2002, the Pontiac Firebird was the badge-engineered clone of the Chevrolet Camaro. Sure, there were disparate differences between the two cars but for all intents and purposes, they were the same cars albeit marketed at somewhat different buyers. 

Legend has it that in early 1966, GM wonks told then Pontiac General Manager John DeLoreon that he had little more than eighteen-months to cobble together a luxury-tinged Camaro akin to what Ford was doing with a Mustang for their Mercury division. Unlike what Mercury was able to do with the Mustang, suits didn't give John Z. and his team the lattitude to change the wheelbase or, save for front and rear facias, the body. Not that given such a short runway he would have been able to do much anyway. 

What was to become the "Firebird", a name used on Motorama Turbine Pontiac's from the 1950's, would be all Camaro save for some suspension tuning and of course GM's then odd policy of divisional engine autonomy. Even then they clamped down on limiting engine displacement and tuning. 

What scares me most about this car is not so much the beat up body and the lack of a top but the rusty frame. Frame repairs are tough because you have to find a welder willing to do the work and good ones you'll find will charge you an arm and leg. I'd figure at least $3,000 for frame work best done with the body off the car. You separating this fifty-three year old body and from it's frame yourself? 

$12,000-$15,000 for bodywork done right and that includes paint. $2,500 for a new top, $3,500 for an interior. Suspension work, all in, if you have a shop do it, will run you the dark side of five-grand. You want "vintage" air-conditioning too? Be prepared to pony up, son. How's the rear axle on this thing? Best best it'll need to be rebuilt to the tune of around $1,500. Holy smokes, this is adding up. 

Then of course there's the engine rebuild and transmission swap - this is an automatic car so out the factory door it came Oldsmobile's "Jetaway"\Buick "Super Turbine 300" two-speeder and not even a Chevrolet Powerglide.  Perhaps a Turbo Hydramatic was installed years ago. Who knows.Throw that slushie in the dumpster along with the cheesy Mickey Thompson (M/T) engine dress up kit.  You're looking at $6,000 all in to make this thing go fast. Or as fast as it looks. 

Given the asking price is $7,500 your price of admission is already quite high an don't count on the seller willing to take much less for it. At least not right now. Give them six-to-eight months of no one calling on it. They said there'd be no math when I started this blog but putting pencil to paper, you're looking at pushing $40,000 all in for this when it's said and done. 

There are first generation Camaro's and Firebird's out there in good shape with those kind of asking prices but if you're restoring this to flip it the margins dont make any sense. Ones that have been resto-modded, where more modern steering and suspension components have been used, will go for upwards of twice that. And they still ride like ox carts with square wheels. 

Figure the better part of a year to get it all done too. That's with you chipping in and doing some of the work yourself. Pick and choose your projects. Results will vary. Void where prohibited. 

1986 Chevrolet Camaro IROC-Z - Haters Gonna Hate

Holy college days flashback, Batman. I had no idea what the "International Race of Champions" or "IROC" was before Chevrolet came out with these cars in 1985. This one here is an '86. Not that I was ever into auto-racing, but "IROC" (eye-rock) sounded fairly intriguing and the graphics used on the side of the cars looked such as well. An "IROC" either enhanced your appreciation of the Camaro ethos or perpetuated any pre-conceived notions you had of them. Up to and including stereotypes. Haters gonna hate. 

If the IROC-Z had any flaw, above, frankly, issues inherent to third-generation Camaro's, it that it was not as "fast" as the car it supposedly was marketed directly against, Ford's Mustang GT. It wasn't much slower (more like "not-fast") but the automobile rags consistently found the little Fox body Mustang quicker zero-to-sixty and in the quarter mile and with a higher top-speed than a third-gen Camaro. 

When Chevrolet came out with the IROC-Z for 1985 with an available 5.0-liter engine with then state-of-the-art "Tuned Port Fuel Injection" (TPI), pulsating with all of two-hundred and fifteen net horsepower and two-hundred seventy-five foot-pounds of torque, they must have thought they would finally corral Ford's pony. However, saddled with an automatic (a manual stout enough to handle the torque allegedly wouldn't fit) and those son-of-a-gun's in Dearborn found even more juice in the last go 'round of their venerated and carburated 5.0 (actually it was a 4.9), the IROC-Z finished in second-place in a two-horse town. Curses! For 1986, 5.0-liter IROC's, like our subject, couldn't catch any Mustang 5.0 (with a manual or automatic) with Ford's new-for-'86 port-fuel injection system either. Double-drat. 

Begs the question why Ford was able to have a stick-shift in their Mustang in an engine making three-hundred pounds of torque while GM didn't on the Camaro. Adding insult to injury, the Mustang was depicted as a better daily driver thanks to a superior driving position, somewhat better seats and more pliable suspension tuning. It also had a larger back seat. Not that it mattered to someone like me at the time putting themselves through college on two and sometimes three minimum wage jobs; I couldn't get anywhere near either one of them. But given a choice, blindly so, throw me the keys to an IROC-Z and let me see for myself just how horrible it would have been to live with day-to-day as my sole means of transportation. 

Probably the single biggest reason why the "third-generation" Camaro was slower than a Ford Mustang was it was some three-hundred pounds heavier. And to compensate for that extra bulk, finally, and what was supposed to be for model year 1986 but for a number of reasons had to wait until 1987, Chevrolet dropped a slightly de-tuned version of the mighty L98 Corvette engine into the IROC-Z and, at last, the IROC-Z (with an automatic) beat a Mustang where it mattered most. Well, mattered most to the stuffed-suits at GM and Chevrolet; I'd buy a Camaro over a Mustang no matter if it was slower to sixty miles-per-hour by a month. It's not like a Corvette powered IROC-Z sucked the doors off a 5.0-liter Mustang (with a manual) either but if 6.1 seconds zero-to-sixty compared to 6.2, and a half second faster in the quarter mile was really "faster", well, whom am I to judge. 

Now, you could get an IROC-Z or a Z28 back then with a stick-shift but you couldn't get the stick with either the Tuned-Port 5.0 (LB9) or the honkin' L98 Corvette 5.7. The carburated L69 "High Output" 5.0-liter "Chevy" making one-hundred ninety horses in Camaro tune (one-hundred and eighty in a Monte Carlo SS) was the motor you wanted if you had to have a stick in your Z; it made only two-hundred forty foot-pounds of torque. Probably as a way to boost Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) numbers, a Z28 was available with Chevrolet's one-hundred fifty-five horsepower LG4 5.0-liter as well. Funny, you'd think those would be pretty hard to find these days but most manual-transmission Z28's of this era I find have LG4's in them. IROC-Z' were available only with a high-performance engine. 

Our fairly well-worn red-head here also highlights an interesting trend in '80's collectibles, as if there are that many, but Camaro's of the era are going for more than Corvette's are. For example, this one here is listed on Facebook Marketplace for, are you sitting down? $8,000. If you're diligent, you can get a nice earlier (pre-'92) C3 for that money.  

There are a number of reasons for that, none of which make real sense. I'll speculate and hypothesize on that in a future soliloquy hopefully by the end of the year. In the meantime, enjoy this Z and comment below if you'd like me to hook you up. Something tells me the owner would love to hear from you. Merry Christmas.