Holden Special Vehicles has more options than ever to expand the lineup of right-hand-drive Chevrolet Camaro models for the Australian market, as the current Camaro 2SS – the only model available in the market – is being dropped for the 2019 model year, giving HSV the chance to set its own specifications. The Australian Camaro 2SS was originally spec’d and engineered for the Argentine market, and available only as a coupe with an eight-speed automatic transmission and a sunroof.
“Moving away from the Argentina spec does provide more freedom but it does create new challenges as well,” Holden Special Vehicles Managing Director Tim Jackson told Australian motoring outlet Drive recently. “It creates emissions work [and] another range of certification that goes with that. One of the things it will mean is we won’t have to have a sunroof. It does open up a different set of choices but it drives a different set of certifications and investment.”
While Jackson didn’t go into details, one of the options believed to be coming to the Australian Camaro soon enough is a manual transmission, possibly as soon as next year. The turbocharged I4 and naturally-aspirated V6 offered in North America might also present potential options for the future Holden Camaro, and at the high end of the lineup, the supercharged Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 is suspected to be an eventual target for import and conversion to RHD.
“We look at ZL1 and go, ‘that’s a cool car.’ There’s no doubt about that. But there are a lot of challenges that we have got overcome for that to be a reality,” Jackson said, alluding to the engineering and homologation work that would need to be completed.
The Holden Special Vehicles Managing Director admitted to Drive that in bringing the current Australian Camaro 2SS to market, the company prioritized matching the ride and handling qualities of the left-hand-drive model over modifying its performance. But the next time around might not be the same, he suggested.
“We still absolutely have ambitions to be enhancing vehicles, there’s no doubt about that,” he said.
Comment
Until GM build the camaro in rhd and make it price competitive with mustang the idea of L4 & V6 options is a joke, no one in their right mind will pay close to 100k for anything less than an LT1 V8 in a car like the camaro.