I’ll Take Mine in Yellow: 2010 Chevrolet Camaro Breaks Cover

Forget the Corvette, America's auto industry now has a new beauty queen. Chevrolet's astonishingly beautiful 2010 Camaro will see its official unveiling today, and thanks to a plethora of leaked images we can finally lay our eyes on virtually every component of this stunning example of retro done right.

We've all seen the exterior before so we won't bore you with the minutiae of its external appearance. We WILL, however, state for the record that those sharp panel creases, fat hips and menacing front grille make us very, very horny indeed. Clearly GM has spared no effort in making the Camaro absolutely spot-on aesthetically, while the obvious nod towards the first-gen Camaro of the late 1960s has been executed perfectly. There's no doubt that no other "retro" ride from any other manufacturer has managed to replicate the original's flavour as well the 2010 Camaro. Not the Mustang, not the Mini, and certainly not the Beetle.

In some ways, you could think of the new Camaro as being Charlie Sheen to the 1st-gen Camaro's Martin Sheen: a worthy successor to his father's legacy... up until the point when he developed a mammoth drug problem and signed on to such garbage shows as Two and a Half Men. Hopefully such a fate never befalls the Camaro.

The new Camaro will come in LS, LT and SS trim, with the RS version seen in the pictures here supposedly being an appearance package. A 310kW 6.2 V8 is expected to be the enthusiasts choice of motor, while a 221kW 3.6-litre V6 will power Camaros destined for less lead-footed customers. Those customers will be able to bask in the retro-coolness of the Camaro's sumptuously-designed interior, which is by far the best-looking interior to be fitted to an American car in a long, long time. While terribly impractical and difficult to look at, we absolutely love that quartet of guages mounted at the front of the centre console: a clever throwback to Camaros of yesteryear.

What won't be replicated by the new Camaro will be the terrible handling and agricultural suspension design of the first model. Underneath the 2010 car is a fully-independent suspension system with Macpherson struts on the front and a multi-link rear and weight distribution is admirably close to neutral too, with the Camaro's 1700-odd kilograms spread 52-48 per cent front to rear. The SS reportedly gets 4-piston Brembo calipers on the front brakes too, while all models will benefit from StabiliTrak traction control. Both the manual and automatic gearboxes boast six ratios, twice as many as offered by the first-generation Camaro's standard 'box.

So, will it ever be coming Downunder? The buyer interest is definitely there and a right-hand-drive model has been confirmed for the UK market, so its within the realm of possibility. However, would GM be willing to risk cannibalising sales from any future production version of the Coupe 60? That's the real question and no doubt one that'll be answered later next year, when the Camaro enters showrooms in North America. What say you? Would you rather the Camaro, or a new Monaro? Comment away!

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[Camaro5.com]