Hey Everyone,
Thanks for all the comments on my rendering. I've been having a great time reading through them, especially the negative ones. LOL
If there's one thing I've learned about design it's that if there's no negative comments I haven't worked hard enough on it because it's too vanilla and too safe. There's never been a car, a toaster, or a supermodel that didn't get polarizing comments. I've failed if everyone's comments are lukewarm positive ones.
This rendering is completely independent of GM. I'm a freelance custom car designer and a 70 Camaro owner. Camaro Performers magazine asks me to submit renderings of interesting Camaro designs for their monthly "Camaro Concepts" feature. I guess I was just sick of sitting on the sidelines and decided to make my modest plea of what I'd like in my driveway. Some say it's too ricer, some say it's too close to the 5th gen, some see Mustang. I'll give you a little insight as to what I was thinking anyway...many of you might disagree. ;)
I'll have to say that I used this forum as a major source of direction for what my plans were. I researched the hell out of what GM Brass was leaking in interviews, what industry speculators were saying and what all of us Camaro fans and enthusiasts were saying on the forums with anonymity.
A lot of the inspiration was based the what I've been doing to my 5th gen client's cars. The elements that I kept doing over and over for them ended up on this car.
I really like the 5th generation car and it seems a lot of people do as well, judging by sales compared to the Mustang and Challenger. But every time I see one parked next to a 1st gen it just looks so slab-sided and bloated with some areas that are unnecessarily blocky and unrefined. Styling trends are already moving away from this raw, edgy stuff and I'm pretty confident that literal translations of retro stuff has run it's course.
However, Chevy has already said that they don't want to ruin what they have accomplished but there are improvements that can be made, especially the size and weight. They specifically used the word "evolutionary" not "revolutionary" when it comes to styling the new Camaro. With a lighter car that may end up having a little 4 banger, now the car is potentially affordable to a younger enthusiast crowd as well. That may help them to gain long term brand loyalty from NEW customers that have historically bypassed other boring econobox GM cars.
So in my design, basically, I shrunk it down to ATS platform size; retained the general look of the iconic muscle car greenhouse; bulged out the fenders (not quite a wide-body); added more sculpting and creases along the side to make it appear more slender; made the quarter gills functional brake cooling ports; softened up the chiseled rear and integrated some modern LED halo tail lights into a single unit (that could be swapped out for something retro by the aftermarket); sculpted blinkers into the side mirror to thin them out a little; ditched the lame mail slot, uninspired lower valence and fisher price grill and headlights for a much more aggressive and modern front fascia with larger intakes. I also added my interpretation of what a functional "ice cube" tray heat-extractor hood would be. And there's no way I wasn't going to let this leave my drawing board without some LED headlights for an RS look. The technology is already there and this is the direction the industry is headed, why not capitalize on it on an iconic light configuration that would be a perfect application?
I tried to wear as many hats as I could and think about this design from various angles. I looked at how the exotics refresh their cars generation to generation. Each generation of Porsche is a fresh evolution of it's predecessor, you can easily see the similarities but you still know it's different and NEW!
My one regret was not having enough time to submit this design with a wheel from my new forged wheel line. I'm ashamed to say that I photoshopped wheels from the Tru 140S, but they seemed to work well with the design....I think.
Thanks for all the comments (good and bad)!
Ben
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...2015Camaro.jpg