FWD Chevrolet Camaro GM-80 – dead on arrival

Since the late 1960s, the pony car has been a mainstay of American automotive culture, built on the simple formula of rear-wheel drive and a heart-shaped engine in the front, preferably a V8. However, ironically, in the 1980s Ford and GM made plans to ditch the V8s from their mainstays, the Mustang and Camaro, and make them front-wheel drive.

Ford’s effort was a joint venture with Mazda, dubbed the ST16, and when details leaked, there was such a stink that the old Mustang was quickly taken off the execution list and given a budget makeover that would keep it running smoothly. the ’90s. The controversial FWD project was redesigned to sit alongside the Stang and went on sale in 1988 as the Ford Probe. At least Ford’s front-wheel drive project was successful in sales, although it was positioned as a rival to the Toyota Celica. GM’s efforts were not very lucky.

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Developed in the early 1980s, the GM-80 project saw the future of the Camaro (and its sister car, the Pontiac Firebird) as small, light and driven with its own set of steering wheels. On paper this made a lot of sense, as many other GM vehicles were moving to FWD. Pulling the horsepower cars down the line would bring about a sensible economy of powertrain standards, in this case the two new valve-per-cylinder units being developed at the time: the 2.3-liter 16-valve four and the 3.4-liter 24-valve. V6.

Instead of putting the new Camaro on a sleek sedan chassis, however, engineers focused on an all-aluminum shell before settling on a distinctly sharp steel structure clad in plastic panels. This skin technique had various advantages: it would be easier for the instrument, it would be easier to lift the surface, and it would not rot. Exciting times for the manufacturing, marketing and warranty departments. Additionally, GM was already working on an unusual mid-engined, two-seater ‘passenger’ built in the same way, which was introduced in 1984 as the Pontiac Fiero. The GM-80 can be assembled alongside the Fiero in a factory already equipped to build plastic-on-metal vehicles.

By the time prototypes were produced at GM’s proving grounds in the mid-’80s, the project was not progressing well. The first problem was that, plastic panels or not, the car was too heavy and, without the torque of a raw V8 to beat it, its performance was weak. Worse, the Detroit rumor mill said that the GM-80 had failed its first crash tests and would require expensive reengineering to have any hope of being sold.

In the summer of 1985 General Motors warned suppliers that the front-wheel drive project was on hold. In October 1986, GM chairman Roger B Smith agreed Detroit news that the hold was, in fact, not temporary at all. ‘The GM-80 is now gone,’ he confirmed, adding that the project was ‘outside the cost barrier’. In other words, by trying to increase the technology of its plastic body and install new luxurious engines, GM greatly increased the unit price of its future horse car, forgetting that the Camaro has always been simple as scissors and about the high cost of production. Asking American buyers to accept a front-wheel drive Pony would be difficult enough; make them pay more burden because it will be more than color.

Despite spending a rumored one billion dollars on the project, General Motors saw fit and sent all models to the field. But work on the GM-80 was not entirely in vain as some of the design ideas in its sleek aerodynamic style were adapted and stretched over the existing F-body platform, which now features a special use of glassfibre in its skin, and was launched as four. -generation Camaro of 1993. Instead of adventurous body engineering and a modern twin-cam engine, it came with two features that horse car customers seemed to want all along; V8 and rear wheel drive.

This story was first published evo version 301.