Question:

I am doing a essay for college, “relationships” so I thought I would do an essay on the relationship between the camaro and trans am….  If you would, please someone, please give me a lot of info on this….History of them everything about them, from 1967 till 1996 and a little about the 1997s.

Answer:

Interesting enough, the Firebird/Trans Am was first on GM drawing boards, but never made the production thing back in ‘65 and earlier. The first Firebird prototypes were a trip, looked like rocket cars with bubble tops.

When the mustang hit the streets, based on a Falcon frame/platform, Ford opened pandoras box for small “pony” cars. While GM had the ‘vette, it was a bit spendy and was not really a competitor (also was suffering a gob of sales woes that almost ended its’ life on several occasions).

The Camaro was developed to compete with the mustang, but more importantly, GM decided to build a dedicated platform that could go racing in the Trans Am racing series. While Ford adapted an existing platform, Chevy started with a clean sheet of paper. The platform of choise was unit-body, where the body was a frame structure, with a stup-frame section tagged onto it for the front end. At the time, suspensions were sort of junk and the rubber mounted stup frame helped soften the ride and quite road noise.

When the SCCA organization set the rules up for V8 engines, they established the 5.0 litre limitation or 302 cubic inches. The Z28 engine was developed specifically so they could offer a Camaro, stock legal, with the proper engine displacement. By the end of 1969 Fords dominance had been stomped out by the Camaro.

In 1970 the Ralph Nader yahoos had upped the anty on the safety bumper gig. Chev had 2 cars at the end of 1969, the old 1st gen body and the new second gen. body style. They intended to introduce the 2nd gen cars in 1971, but were forced to release them in 1970. A lot of folklore exists about the 1969 1/2 and 1970 1/2 models, whichever, as the second gen cars were introduced late in the model cycle, as GM scrambled to get the 2nd gen cars on line. I’ve heard a whole slew of 1st gen 1970 body cars were built, but were not allowed to be sold, so were donated to high school and tech school shop classes without registrations or title. (This is all yarns told over the years, should be verified).

The first gen cars were those made from 1967 to 1969. Second gen cars are the swoopier bodies of 1970 to 1981. Third gen cars are from 1982 to 1992 and the fourth gen are the current car style (plastic fenders, made in Canada).

The seventies sucked for Camaros in a lot of ways. The smog laws and tecnology lag killed the performance for a while. The Z28 even died for a while. GM struggled along and fumbled the identity a little and the cars got bigger and boatier, untill 1980, when they were about as ugly as they could ever be.

1982 came with a bang and a whimper. The 3rd gen cars were deffinitely better looking, but were offered with dweeby 4 cylinder motors as base cars, with a V6 option and a V8 305 option. None of them were all that great, but at least the car lost enough weight and gained new suspension goodies that made them performance cars again. The 3rd gen cars were also the first all coil spring cars and the first unit bodies. The suspension used modified McPhereson front ends, so the ride improved, elliminating the need for the front stup frame, so the new cars were all body structured.

The fourth gen cars are very similar to 3rd gen cars, except they’ve gained a whole ton of performance improvements, better suspension still, better engines (LT1), better transmissions, etc… They also have a problem, as the sloped widsheild is so severe that the engine is under the dash a bit. This means the engine has to be extracted from under the car, not from above. In many ways, this will put a damper on Camaros being used for hot rods in the future. Most 4th gen cars at the race tracks are plastic body tube frame cars, not stock platform toys.

The Trans Am was developed by Pontiac, using vertually the entire Camaro car, with slight style changes to the nose and tail. A few interior trim items were changed for identity as well. In first gen Firebirds, the engines were all Pontiac. In second gen cars they were a bit mixed up, between corporate GM motors and Pontiac. In third gen cars, the small block chev engine (V8 enyway) was considered the corporate V8 and was used in all, same with 4th gen cars.

The Trans Am name is named after the racing series. Z28 is some sort of Chevy performance code they used in the project. RS is rallye sport, SS is super sport.

Mixed into the Camaro goofy history are way cool dealer built cars, like the Yenko and others. Chev also offered a fw with big blocks ranging from the 396 to 427, mostly the 1st gen cars. Today SLP performance and Callaway offer some trick big block 4th gen hot rods, with 502 inch motors and all. The SLP guys focus on the Firebird and have offewred the Firehawk through dealers.

While the Corvette has always been Chevies real race bread toy, aimed at ultimate style and performance, the Camaro and Firebird have always been aimed at being affordable, truly American all-sports GT type cars. They have always been raced heavily from their first season in production, mostly road courses and later drag racing and then circle track.

While the Mustang went into a tail spin in the seventies (the Mustang two fiasco, also known as the gelding), the Camaro and Firebird at least attempted to stay loyal to their breeding, even if they got a bit fat and slow.

That’s my two bits worth anyway.

I’m sure other can correct my errors and add more detailed information. This is a focused group, if not an active one!

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