GM Holden Developing Production Camaro, Report Says

CANBERRA – A team at GM Holden Ltd. reportedly is working to turn the Chevrolet Camaro concept car into a reality.

The taskforce was set up at the start of the year, soon after a dramatically restyled Camaro was revealed at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit in January.

The Telegraph newspaper here says the team reports through former GM Holden design director Michael Simcoe, who attended the Melbourne auto show in February and admitted at the time he was visiting partly to commission some local work on an international project.

The Telegraph says it now appears the job is more than just the VE Commodore and Statesman tweaking for their planned role as an export money-earner for GM Holden.

"The only thing I can say on the record is that our new rear-wheel-drive (Zeta) architecture is the main candidate for the future (GM) American rear-wheel-drive products, including the Camaro Concept," GM Holden Chairman Denny Mooney says in the report. "We have a significant number of engineering and design resources…working on the project."

The newspaper says Mooney is careful to avoid any confirmation of a Camaro car project, even though the car was an overwhelming success in Detroit and is being considered for full-scale production.

Concept Camaro unveiled at Detroit auto show.

He also declines to discuss the potential impact of the Camaro project on the future of a new Holden Monaro. The current Monaro was phased out earlier in the year.

Mooney says Holden is into the last months of finalizing launch plans for the new VE Commodore and Statesman large cars, also built on the Zeta platform. A Job One date now is locked in place and the runout of the VZ series has begun.

"Our dealers would say now that we are short of stock," Mooney says. "We don't have any issues on runout. Our production lines are fine."