The New Camaro Will Be A Four Door Sedan
Riddle me, this Batman: When did humans stop liking two-door cars? When we were in high school, if you were driving anything with four doors, you were probably driving your parents’ car. No self-respecting teen would choose a four-door or god forbid, a station wagon – which automakers now call SUV’s or crossovers. You marketing executives might fool millennials and some Gen-Zers, but we Boomers know the truth.
Over the years, we’ve seen multiple sports car marquees have their reputations tarnished with bastardized four-door iterations. The Dodge Charger comes to mind. In the 1960s and 1970s, Chargers were always tw0-door models. The Ford Mustang now offers a Mach-E. The “E” stands for Excuse me, are you freaking serious?
Chevrolet continues to produce the Camaro as a two-door, but with sales dropping rapidly the current sixth generation is the last Camaro as we know it.
Replacing it will be an “electric performance sedan” in 2023. What we don’t know is if this EV sedan will run concurrently with the sixth-gen Camaro or completely replace it. Either way, there is a four-door Camaro EV on the horizon.
Though most automakers are on the truck and SUV bandwagon, electric sedans are far from dead. Tesla’s Model S and the Mercedes EQS are but two examples of electric sedans with a performance slant. And you only need to look at Toyota Camry sales to see that sedans still sell well.
So maybe an all-electric performance sedan makes some sense. SRT versions of the Chrysler 300 and Dodge Charger prove that point. No one ever believed that a Dodge Charger could be a four-door sedan, but Chrysler did it anyway.
The same can be said for the Mustang Mach-E. After enthusiasts took to the internet with howls of protest, the Mach-E quietly sold out of its first year’s production – however, I can tell you that the current crop of true Mustang enthusiasts wouldn’t be caught dead in one. Owners of Mach E’s are a completely different audience.
Have two-door cars fallen out of favor because Americans are too portly to ingress and egress without throwing out our backs? I can see a family with children having a preference for four-doors, but minivans and SUVs are better choices. Why then are there not more two-door cars running around?
However, if done right, a compelling Camaro might just be a compelling Camaro; with two- or four-doors. GM has an entire range of EV platforms based around its Ultium system. Published ranges for power peak a 1,000 hp as with the upcoming GMC Hummer. So power and torque from an electric Camaro should not tarnish its heritage.
There have also been discussions for years about slowly folding the Cadillac brand into a new Corvette brand. Cadillac just can’t seem to get any traction. This is somewhat due to the reputation it got from the 1970s and 1980s. It has never been able to live that down.
But the Corvette name is golden. So rather than try to soldier on with the Cadillac brand, the idea was to make the Corvette GM’s new performance and luxury division. But there is no reason why the Camaro name couldn’t be tagged onto an entire line of performance.
So, could this be GM’s first step in fulfilling that idea? Would you be interested in an entire range of performance sedans and crossovers under the Camaro umbrella? Crazier things have happened, But while the new Camaro will be a four door sedan, if GM tried that with the Corvette, that would go over like a lead balloon.
The new Dodge Daytona Coupe Concept was teased across the internet this week, too. It takes the best of the old, modernizes it and somehow works – it just does. And it’s a two-door.
So perhaps two-door sports cars are not dead…yet. But who’s to blame? Your neighbors. Take a look in their driveways…see all those SUVS parked there, and have you noticed when they drive them, there’s only one person in the car?