Chevrolet Camaro 1967 to 2002

Chevrolet spent years developing the Camaro under a code name that had nothing to do with cats and everything to do with secrecy, then refused to explain what the production name actually meant. The answer a company spokesman finally gave the press has been quoted ever since. Across thirty-five years and four generations the car went from a 427 big block to a four-cylinder to an all-aluminum 305-horsepower LS1. Read on for how it got there.

For most of its development the car did not have a name, it had a code word, and the code word was Panther. Chevrolet used it internally for the pony car it was building to answer the Mustang, and the press picked up on it early enough that plenty of people expected to see Panther badges when the covers came off in September 1966. They did not. What arrived instead carried a name nobody outside the company had heard, chosen for reasons Chevrolet declined to explain in any useful detail, and when reporters pressed for a definition the answer they got was so perfectly hostile that it has been repeated in every Camaro article written since.

The Car That Was Almost Called a Panther

The name selection was not random. The first letter had to be a C, in keeping with the tradition already established by Corvair, Chevelle, Chevy II, and Corvette. Beyond that, Chevrolet was cagey. When the press asked management to define what Camaro actually meant, the reply was that it was a small, vicious animal that eats Mustangs. That is not a translation of anything, it is a marketing department enjoying itself, and it worked. The line did more to position the car against Ford than any advertisement Chevrolet ran that year.

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Running as Far as Possible From the Corvair

Engineering-wise, the priority was distance from a recent embarrassment. The Corvair’s rear-engine layout had become a liability for the division, and the Camaro was deliberately conventional: front engine, rear-wheel drive, on the newly developed F-body platform. The engine bay was designed from the start to swallow an enormous variety of powerplants, and the first-generation order sheet reflected that. A buyer could specify four different six-cylinder engines or six different V8s, ranging from a 302 cubic inch, or 4.9-liter, unit all the way up to a high-performance 427 cubic inch, 7.0-liter big block. That original 1967 through 1969 shape, offered only as a coupe or convertible, was influential enough that it was used directly as the inspiration for the fifth-generation car released in 2010.

Second Generation: Eleven Years and a Top-Ten Ranking

The second generation reached showroom floors in February 1970 and stayed in production until 1981, and there is a substantial camp that considers it the best-looking Camaro ever built. It earned real respect early: in 1971 Car and Track named the SS 350 Camaro one of the top ten cars in the world. The car grew heavier and softer through the mid-1970s with significant visible design changes between the 1974 and 1978 model years, though it remained on the F-body platform with unibody construction throughout. The Z28 designation disappeared for a while and was reintroduced mid-1977, and in that period it was the only Camaro that managed to outsell both of its closest rivals, the Trans Am and the Mustang.

Lighter, Injected, and Wearing IROC Badges

The third generation arrived for 1982 and ran essentially unchanged in concept through 1992, and it represented the biggest technical break in the car’s history. These were the first Camaros offered with modern fuel injection instead of carburetion, and they were roughly 500 pounds, about 230 kg, lighter than the second-generation cars they replaced. The 1982 lineup was startlingly broad for a performance car: a four-cylinder with a manual transmission was available, a hatchback body style was offered, wheels came in 15-inch or 16-inch diameters, and buyers could choose a standard five-speed manual, an optional four-speed automatic, or the Turbo Hydra-Matic. The 305 cubic inch V8 was the standard performance engine, and in 1985 the IROC-Z arrived, named for the International Race of Champions series, and stayed on the market through 1990. For 1986 a center high-mounted stop lamp became mandatory, mounted either in the rear window or, on so-equipped cars, in the rear spoiler.

The Police Package and the Track Pack Nobody Ordered

The third generation’s most interesting variants were the ones aimed at people who were not shopping for looks. The 1LE performance package, developed for track use, became available as an option on street cars starting in 1988 and remains one of the most sought-after combinations of the era. The B4C police package, essentially a Z28 wearing the more subdued RS exterior treatment, arrived in 1991 as the last significant new offering of the generation. A 25th Anniversary Heritage package followed in 1992, carrying the 305 cubic inch, 5.0-liter high-output engine.

Fourth Generation: Corvette Power for Camaro Money

The fourth generation ran from 1993 through 2002 and retained the same F-body designation as the original 1967 car, still with front buckets and a rear bench for two. Anti-lock brakes had become standard equipment across the range in 1992. T-tops and a convertible were both available. The base engine from 1993 through 1995 was a 3.4-liter pushrod V6, giving way to the 3.8-liter V6 that arrived during 1995 and carried the range to the end, while the Z28 got a small block 350 cubic inch V8, the same LT1 architecture Chevrolet had introduced in the Corvette a year earlier. A four-speed automatic was standard on the Z28, with a six-speed manual available, and either could be had with all-speed traction control.

The 1998 Restyle and the All-Aluminum LS1

The last significant push came for 1998. The exterior was restyled, most visibly with an arc-shaped rear wing on the Z28 for downforce, and the interior was substantially revised. The 5.7-liter all-aluminum LS1 arrived with a 305-horsepower rating, and the SS versions received intake and exhaust improvements on top of that, along with bigger wheels and tires and stiffer suspension calibration. For a car that had started the generation with a 3.4-liter V6 as its entry point, ending it with an all-aluminum 305-horsepower V8 was a considerable distance traveled.

Thirty-Five Straight Years, Then the Lights Went Out

Then it ended. The final year of fourth-generation production marked thirty-five consecutive years of Camaro manufacture, and General Motors shut the line down in 2002 with no successor announced. The car stayed dead for seven model years before the retro-styled fifth generation arrived in 2010, drawing directly on that first 1967 shape. Anyone tracking values will notice the pattern this history produced: the first-generation big blocks and the genuine Z-code cars carry the highest numbers, the second generation is climbing steadily on the strength of its styling, third-generation 1LE and B4C cars have quietly become the enthusiast’s pick, and clean low-mileage LS1 fourth-generation cars are now the last genuinely affordable way into a 300-horsepower Camaro.

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