Muscled out: Camaro owners lament sports car’s demise

Tuesday, April 2, 2002 | 8:18 a.m.

To some, General Motors' Camaro is a muscle car, a sleek, high-performance vehicle built for speed.

But to Bob Ishibashi, it's a family car.

"Working on it brings the family together," said the 58-year-old retired Xerox serviceman, who lives in southwest Las Vegas.

Ishibashi, a native of Hawaii, said his family has always done things together.

"We rode bicycles together, went to the ballet and gymnastics," he said. "When the children wanted a car, they wanted little (Honda) Civics and Toyotas."

When they were teenagers, Ishibashi convinced them to set their sights higher. Son Todd, now 31, bought a 1969 Camaro in 1988.

Son Ty, 25, bought a '67 Camaro as his first car.

The family is restoring a '68 Camaro for Mom, Carolyn.

Daughter Kam, 26, has a '67 Chevelle.

Ishibashi drives a Chevrolet Blazer, which he bought new in '72, but he spends a lot of time with the family working on the Camaros. But the car is on its way out.

GM announced in September 35 years after the car was introduced that 2002 will be the final production year for the Camaro (as well as for the Pontiac Firebird, which also debuted in '67).

In making the announcement, GM Vice President John G. Middlebrook cited a drop in sales as the reason for the decision to cease production of the two sporty vehicles. Sales declined by 53 percent between 1990-2000, due in large part to the increasing popularity of trucks and SUVs.

"The Chevrolet Camaro and Pontiac Firebird have truly become an integral part of American culture over the years," Middlebrook said. "We appreciate the strong emotions that our customers have for these cars."

The announcement didn't bother Ishibashi.

"It might help us, as far as appreciation of the value of our cars," he said.

But others were not so blase.

Dave Fuchs, a Las Vegas auto-body mechanic, says he hates to see it go.

"It's just a neat, sporty car," he said.

Fuchs, a native of Minnesota, has owned several Camaros over the years. He has a '69, which had less than 10,000 miles on it when he bought it in '75. Now it has about 18,000 miles.

"The only thing I did to it was paint it," he said.

Before that Camaro, Fuchs owned a '67 convertible and hardtops from '68 through '70. He babies his muscle car, rarely taking it out but to attend car shows and car-club events.

"I hate to see them not making Camaros anymore," he said. "All the other cars look pretty much alike today."

Muscle flexing

Many Camaro fans rose in anger when they learned production was ending.

"Among real Camaro enthusiasts there was a tremendous uprising," said Mary Ann Sigurdson, director of marketing for the Worldwide Camaro Association, an international organization of Camaro owners based in Orlando, Fla.

Sigurdson said rumors of Camaro's demise had circulated long before GM finally made the announcement. Petitions were signed and sent to the company in protest.

"A lot of people were disappointed and upset," she said. "But when they realized it was inevitable, there was a tremendous flurry of activity among the real enthusiasts, who went out and bought what was left on the showroom floor."

The WCA is "theoretically ... the national voice for owners of classic Chevys and Camaros. We seek to unite individual car enthusiasts," Sigurdson said.

She noted that when GM made the announcement, the company was careful to say that production was on "hiatus."

Hiatus means a temporary break, and the use of the word has given Camaro fans a ray of hope.

"The focus now is on getting it back," Sigurdson said.

Birth of Camaro

What was it about the Camaro that ignited interest in it when it first hit the road?

"It was about the power," Sigurdson said. "Power was always what it was about."

Camaro was built in response to the popular Ford Mustang, which first came off the assembly line in 1964. The Camaro was offered with a wide variety of engines, ranging from a 230 cubic-inch, six-cylinder to a 327 cubic-inch V8.

There have been four generations of Camaros. The first included those built between 1967 and '69. The second generation was '70 through '81, the third '82 through '92 and the fourth generation from '93 to the present.

Fans say the first generation included the real muscle cars, with large engines and enormous horsepower. But the muscle atrophied in the '70s, when the federal government instituted strict anti-pollution laws and an oil crisis in '74 grounded many gas-guzzling vehicles.

"They were a four-speed, unibody-type drag car that competed effectively with the Ford Mustang and Chrysler," said Las Vegas auto mechanic Mike Marudas, who has restored several classic Camaros for customers.

Marudas said the Camaro basically lost its power, both actually and figuratively, when national anti-pollution laws went into effect and engine sizes were reduced.

Although Marudas likes Camaros, he sees a Chevy Nova in his future.

Nova was introduced in 1962. A body-style change in '68 made it look similar to the Camaro.

Gone but not forgotten

Is Camaro truly gone?

Jeff Bartlett, online editor for Motor Trend magazine, noted in a recent article that Holden (a GM auto-making company in Australia) has debuted the Monaro, a sports coupe that looks, feels and acts very similar to the Camaro.

"It embodies the Camaro spirit," Bartlett wrote.

The Monaro is not available in the United States because of air-quality standards, and may never be, but Bartlett says GM will no doubt keep an eye on the quasi-Camaro's sales figures.

Las Vegan Tom Cwynar also isn't so sure the Camaro is gone for good.

Cwynar is an auto enthusiast who keeps up with the industry. He says there's a rumor that Chevrolet will introduce a new car in 2004 or 2005 that will be a Camaro clone, but won't be called Camaro.

"This new car will be the four-seat brother to the Corvette, with loads of high-performance options," Cwynar, who operates a heating and air-conditioning business, said. "This will be the muscle car of the new generation."

Cwynar likes muscle in his cars. He bought a '69 Camaro two years ago when he attended an auto swap meet in Pomona, Calif., where he had gone to look for a Nova. It was a deal he couldn't refuse.

"It only had one owner," he said. "It was very straight, 64,000 original miles, no rough spots and had a good price ($4,000). I took every nut and bolt out of it, and put in $24,000 in parts."

Cwynar, who moved to Las Vegas from Pennsylvania in 1966, has always liked fast cars. He has owned many muscles cars over the years.

Last year Cwynar and other fast-car fans resurrected The Hustlers, a defunct racing club that had been formed in Las Vegas in the '50s for front- engine dragsters.

"I've always been into drag-racing, hot-rodding, off-road racing," Cwynar said.

He said in the '70s the Camaro became too docile.

"It turned into a Mom-and-Pop car," he said. "It tried to make a comeback with the IROC-Z (in 1985), but it was nothing like the original."

Rick Baldick, GM brand manager for Camaro and Corvette in Detroit, shrugs off rumors about the Monaro and other possible replacements to the Camaro.

"We don't have any plans to bring the Camaro back at this point," Baldick said. "But, never say never."

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