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Hey MC family. Found another interesting segment that has a little more visual appeal. Another viable MC refresh with one exception....but I think you all know what it is.
Honestly that made my head hurt. I have an image in my mind of a Monte that has a little something from every gen but in a new way. I wish I could draw or cgi something.
This photoshop job of a modern Camaro has been all over Facebook. I am a big fan of 3rd gen (82-92) Camaros and IROC was the 85-90 years. Which as I understand, GM no longer owns rights to the name IROC, so odds of seeing that label resurrected might be just about as good as seeing a new Chevy Beretta (for those who don't know, GM lost there tails in a law suit from the Italian gun manufacturer over the use of the name Beretta).
As a wanna be IROC, it's kinda close. Not sold on that. I would honestly LOVE if GM did a wick awesome retro 3rd gen Camaro (but probably won't happen).
As a retro 4th Gen Monte, hard pass. As a Monte, the photoshop job never put the swoops in the fenders and quarters (which that issue was only seen in the 5th gen Monte). Also, the front nose doesn't flow with the rest of the photoshopped body.
The reskinning of the 5th-6th gen Camaros is so bad (from everyone using it in photoshop as a base to mock "new" generations of cars to Trans Am Depot using it for new T/As, GTOs and now a chrome-less fat looking Chevelle) to even new Mustangs are copying the look in real life. I am kinda board with the over use of it for anything beyond a Camaro.
It would be great to see GM resurrect some of the greats, but it's also tough. They already had a taste when they brought back the GTO in the early 2000's (aka the Holden Monaro). I loved the modern GTO, but I am not a GTO enthusiast to see things GM missed the mark on with the heritage of the car. I just loved it because I thought it was a cool car. GM wanted to GRAB that GTO enthusiast group, hence why it was not the "Pontiac Monaro" (a new Pontiac label). And one thing I recall big time GTO enthusiasts did not like was lack of hood scoops in the first year. To resurrect a name plate, for the hard core guys, it is more than JUST the name, it has to capture some of that heritage of the car with some of those trivial details.
The reskinning of the 5th-6th gen Camaros is so bad (from everyone using it in photoshop as a base to mock "new" generations of cars to Trans Am Depot using it for new T/As, GTOs and now a chrome-less fat looking Chevelle) to even new Mustangs are copying the look in real life. I am kinda board with the over use of it for anything beyond a Camaro.
I'm with with you on that one. I'm getting to the point where I'm starting to not like any of them just because the 5th/6th gen photoshopping is so overdone. Although I will also say the nose on this one especially gruesome.
I wish more people would start with another base - heck even use the original car they're trying to copy and just modernize the bodywork on that. Anything to try to give thr car a little different proportions at the core.
It would be great to see GM resurrect some of the greats, but it's also tough.
On that topic, I wonder if we're going to start to see a shift away from that stuff with the OEMs - at least in terms of throwbacks to the 60s/70s muscle cars (obviously not talking about this specific photoshop as an 80s car throwback).
My thought there is that the people who would've bought these cars new in the 60s + 70s arent going to be buying new renditions for nostalgia anymore. Someone who was 20 in 1970 (assuming they had a decent job and could buy one new that young) would be over 70 today.
Maybe there's still some nostalgia in some name plates that did continue on past the 70s (Camaro, Mustang, etc) - but for things like the Chevelle you mentioned - Id imagine the nostalgia market is probably too far gone.
Last edited by bumpin96monte; 09-23-2022 at 12:05 PM.
So, as I understand, the concept below was done as part of a contest of some kind with college kids to draft a potential 6th gen Camaro. I have saved this, because I thought it was neat. Has a LOT of 3rd gen Camaro qualities merged into the 5th gen Camaro. Give me T-tops, a big ol' hatch and some tweaks to the front nose and this might just hit to spot. When I look at the biggest pic in that concept, it looks pretty good from that angle. And I had really hoped the 6th Gen Camaro may have gone this direction, as the 3rd gen Camaro is a very iconic look for the 80's. But, sadly, no... GM did not....
On that topic, I wonder if we're going to start to see a shift away from that stuff with the OEMs - at least in terms of throwbacks to the 60s/70s muscle cars (obviously not talking about this specific photoshop as an 80s car throwback).
My thought there is that the people who would've bought these cars new in the 60s + 70s arent going to be buying new renditions for nostalgia anymore. Someone who was 20 in 1970 (assuming they had a decent job and could buy one new that young) would be over 70 today.
Maybe there's still some nostalgia in some name plates that did continue on past the 70s (Camaro, Mustang, etc) - but for things like the Chevelle you mentioned - Id imagine the nostalgia market is probably too far gone.
So one thing I feel interesting about the Monte. If you take the 5th gen Monte out of the linage, I feel the 6th gen has a great look as a somewhat modern and retro 4th gen. Might just be me.
Anycase, to what I quoted. So I used to work with a guy who is about my father's age (which next year, my father will be 70). This guy was a Mustang fan, but mostly of the old Mustang he had "back in the day". I sadly don't remember what year he had. In 2005 he liked the new retro look of the Mustang (he never bought one, but he did like it). And so, they is where Ford did fantastic. You want a pretty sizable price tag on these and you also want them to move. Design a car that has tons of nostalgia to the popular 60's version in order to get the person who is or is becoming an empty nester, hopefully a good job and more importantly, some disposable income. You will still get the younger people, but you want to tap that demographic that most likely has money to spend.
To your point, sure, resurrecting say the Chevelle might not work as well at this point. Your target demographic may just not care anymore. BUT, you can also reach something different. The person who wasn't old enough to consider buying a Chevelle when it was new or say the person who bought a beater Chevelle as their first cars years after the name had ended. My supporting argument.... Myself.... Currently, I do own a 1984 Camaro. It is the second car I ever owned, bought when I was a senior in High School. When that car was built, I was 4! I bought it in March of 1998. And if GM did an awesome retro version of that 3rd gen Camaro, I am in that pool of people who could consider buying a show room new Camaro (and if they did one right, a strong chance I would bite the bullet and buy my first brand new car).
Not unreasonable to think there could be a strong pool of Chevelle enthusiasts out there that might be 10-15 older than I am. Puts them mid to late 50's. Still worth while. Plus, bring something FRESH to market the works for the Chevelle enthusiasts, what are the odds the younger generations would also desire it? But you have to get you loyal enthusiasts to back it to help drive that excitement.
No doubt some of the models continue to have a legacy with younger generations (especially with the popularity of movies/ video games) and they could leverage that to dust off an ancient nameplate if it were executed properly.
Perhaps I'm just pessimistic about GM's ability to actually do it correctly due to all of the corporate red tape. They dont really have a great track record. The GTO example you gave is a great one. Ive got one as a DD and absolutely love the car, but I also realize that there's virtually no ties to the historical GTO outside of the letters on the badge (which funny enough so many remove to put back to Holden badging as they think thats a 'cooler' association than with the GTO nameplate). Its hard to drum up that nostalgia feel for the original crowd without some kind of visceral tie (the new mustang having a digital dash option to change to the 80s gauges being a really awesome step in that direction).
I also think with every year that passes (through evolving design practices and changing safety + economy standards), it gets harder and harder to capture that spirit of what people loved so much about the originals. You ask an enthusiast, and they'll probably want something similar to the modern Camaro / Challenger. Mid-larger sized 2 door with a big RWD V8 (perhaps even a GM spinoff of their latest gen BBC to compete with the Ford Godzilla engine to really tie it into the original).
What they'll actually get is probably a reskinned Malibu with some stripes slapped on it and the hottest ecotec 4 in the parts bin on the SS version for good measure. Then GM will wonder why the magazines hate on it...
Last edited by bumpin96monte; 09-23-2022 at 05:07 PM.
Bumpin, I think you are completely right! And it's funny how right you are about modern GTO owners re-badging it as a Holden!!! Given that fact the late model GTO was never designed to be a GTO (GM thought they could be sneaky and borrow it), I really think they would have done way better bringing it to market as a Pontiac with it's Holden Monaro name. If they wanted to truly bring GTO back, then design a GTO that brings back it's legacy and heritage.
Another prime example, the 5th gen Monte. I mean zero disrespect to 5th gen Monte enthusiasts, but to be honest, they slapped the Monte Carlo name on a late model 2-door Lumina. It lacks a piece of Monte Carlo heritage that all other generations have and it is those swoops in the fenders and quarters. Plus, that was their first offering of a FWD Monte. A lot of hardcore Monte enthusiasts were not a fan of this return of the Monte Carlo name plate.
I have heard a lot of old-school Monte enthusiasts claim "the 6th gen has the right look, shame it wasn't RWD". This says GM at visually captured what that car needed for enthusiasts to accept it as a Monte Carlo (visually).
I am not a Malibu guy, which as I recall the Malibu muscle car was basically a Chevelle in many ways. But the Malibu's return as an n-body, I have no idea if Malibu enthusiasts even knew it existed.
But GM began working on resurrecting the Camaro almost as quickly as they ended it in 2002. When the 5th gen Camaro arrived, I think almost every Camaro enthusiast loved it. But these days I cannot really tell at a glance the difference in a late model re-styled 5th gen vs a 6th gen Camaro. The general look is too over played. GM has enough resources into the Camaro, I am sure they want to continue that name, they can keep working with it.
It is like any other fandom (be it comics, movies, whatever), resurrecting a iconic name would take any manufacture time. Especially if the current design teams were not involved or enthusiast of the car they are bringing back. An example of that is when I saw a video of a guy who was photoshopping a 6th gen Monte to try and modernize it's look. One of the first things he did in photoshop was erase the swoops.
09-21-2022, 06:13 PM
Chevy Camaro to Iroc ZL1 to MC SS
