Popular Mechanics Best Vehicle Design Award: 2010 Chevrolet Camaro
Best Vehicle Design: 2010 Chevrolet Camaro
By The Editors
Published in the December 2009 issue.
Popular Mechanics....
After a painfully long eight-year hiatus, the Chevy Camaro returns packing V8 power and V6 efficiency wrapped around classic sheet metal pulled forward into the 21st century. The design certainly pays homage to the past, but the muscular lines of this Camaro are modern and fresh.
The success of a new car design, especially a sporty one, depends on its ability not just to turn heads, but to inspire an almost primal lust in everyone from a college kid to his grandfather— hitting all the age groups in between. The new Camaro does just that—and it’s become one of the few cars outside the supercar ranks that will almost always elicit a conversation at the gas pumps.
Under the watch of GM design boss Ed Welburn, Chevy imagined the new Camaro as a thoroughly modern take on the 1967 original. And it looks amazingly close to the 2006 concept car. GM engineers somehow avoided the compromises that tend to dilute a designer’s original
vision as it makes its way into production. The inset front grille and the outboard round headlights offer a real link to that first Camaro, yet the big wheels and taut proportions perfectly convey 21st-century muscle.
Good design extends to the interior too: The view through the windshield is 1960s cool, yet it’s the subtleties that make this car feel so right. Of course, a Camaro wouldn’t feel right at all if there wasn’t some serious firepower under the hood. The top-dog SS models have a big 422-hp 6.2-liter V8, and even the base cars receive a potent V6 that returns 30 mpg highway.
The real triumph is that all the Camaro’s performance and intelligent design can be had for just a tick over $20,000. That’s a bargain.
Ed Welburn & the team, next to finalized design task
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The Team: Micah Jones, Rebecca Waldmeir, Sangyup Lee ; displaying their creation at downtown Manhattan
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