1969 to 1970 Camaro Question
 

I was thinking about this the other day and wanted to ask those who were there when the 1970 Camaro was introduced after the 1969 Camaro production ended and what the reaction was. This was such a massive change in style and focus from the drag race friendly 1969 with factory big blocks to very few big block 1970's along with the seemingly larger focus on the Camaro being a more road racer than drag racer. Maybe I'm wrong, but the massive style change and road racing focus had to been pretty drastic.

IROC --- took over the drag racing for the Camaro

I was 17.5 and most all the people I knew disliked it. It was presented as having "european" styling and it was too different from the "American" vehicles we drove. We didn't want european, we wanted American...:flag:

Probably nothing Sexier than a 1970 RS/Z28 But they were probably ahead of their time with the european inspired styling ? But then Again the 69 is the Iconic Hot Rod Camaro

I was working at Luby Chevrolet in Boston at the time you could get the Turbo 400 automatic trans in 1970 i remember tearing up the streets with them.

great question! I was only 3 years old at the time so would be interested in car enthusiast recollections of the era. My first car was a '69 Z/28, bought in 1980 with summer lawn mowing money. I didn't care much for the 2nd gen Camaros back then, but have grown to love them both over time. There was a great road-test article on the new '70 Z/28 when it was first available- I think it was Car Craft? It was a burnished brown Z with black interior & white stripes, they really emphasized the European styling change and general public reaction driving around LA. It was a Turbo 400 car and I think they broke a few U-Joints during the drag-strip testing phase. I still have that Mag in garage, the car is on the cover. anyways- love to hear any comments! Cheers-

Yeah this is a great question.

I found this for production numbers:

1967 220,906
1968 235,147
1969 243,085
1970: 124,901
1971: 114,630
1972: 68,651
1973: 96,751
1974: 151,008
1975: 145,770
1976: 182,959
1977: 218,853
1978: 272,631
1979: 282,582
1980: 152,005
1981: 126,138

Makes me think the 2nd gen restyle was not well received. Also I wonder why GM didn't make the '69 style 1-2 more years?

1st gen lasted 3 years....2nd gen lasted 12 years. Production numbers alone don't tell the whole story...after 1970, the whole of the automotive industry changed focus, for reasons many and varied.

I was 18 when the 2nd gen was introduced, and I loved it from the start. That said, I love the 1st gens also!

I love 2nd gens but that's a pretty big dip starting in 1970. I know there was a strike but that doesn't really account for the soft numbers in after 1970. How was the economy?

Let's look at Mustang sales, looks like they had a dip in 1970 too but why...

1964.5 121,538
1965 559,451
1966 607,568
1967 472,121
1968 317,404
1969 299,824
1970 191,239
1971 151,484
1972 125,813
1973 134,817
1974 385,993
1975 188,575
1976 187,567
1977 153,173
1978 192,410
1979 369,936
1980 271,322

The 2nd Gen was being designed at the same time the 1st Gen was due to the nature of the industry. Body style typically changed visually every year to keep people interested and know the “new” whatever is out. As the industry changed to minimize changes but really to save money, you went from wholesale changes to minor cosmetics. Planned obsolescence was the standard….until it was costly.

The Mustang had a sales dip in 1970 even though the '69 and '70 models were pretty similar.

Firebird suffered the same. Combine Camaro & Firebird and sales weren’t bad considering. While ‘70 suffered from short production year there were allot of other factors. Radical design, 1st model year, higher price, fuel and insurance costs, cost of living and soon to come emission changes allot of suffering was inevitable. Allot of people already spent their money on the popular ‘69 models during the longer production run so may not have been willing to jump to new purchase.. Another issue was popularity of other models. Cutlass was one of the most popular models and it numbers did not see the same declines start of ‘70’s.
Year Total Firebird Production
1967 82,560
1968 107,112
1969 87,011
1970 66,576
1971 52,124
1972 29,951
1973 46,313
1974 73,729
1975 84,063
1976 96,778
1977 117,626
1978 187,285
1979 211,454
1980 107,340
1981 71,899
1982 116,366
1983 74,884
1984 128,304

Year Number of Cutlass' Produced
1961 76,394
1962 93,968
1963 118,811
1964 167,002
1965 180,097
1966 202,967
1967 226,406
1968 300,284
1969 204,865
1970 275,179
1971 234,208
1972 302,669
1973 381,094
1974 315,499
1975 323,842
1976 495,344
1977 633,910
1978 613,340
1979 631,027
1980 591,984
1981 597,525
1982 382,204
1983 335,357
1984 429,651
1985 292,633
1986 305,566
1987 192,433
1988 30,267

Dang the Cutlass had strong sales numbers.

1970 Corvette production started in January 1970 due to the strike and Camaro started production in January 70 also so 1970 was a short production year for Camaro & Corvette production for 1969 Corvette was 38,762 units 1970 Corvette was 17,316

Thanks everyone. Also, a question I've pondered as stated above is why they didn't push the 1969 model into 1970 after the sales figures were so strong in 1969 and the general popularity of that year. Another year of the 1969 body with minor changes could have been another great sales year (I wish they would have done that just to increase the number of that body style existing today).

From what I read after and since, the '69 production was intended to end in July/August, as usual, but Fischer was having trouble getting the dies for the quarter panels to come out right. They kept trying to modify them into the time period where they couldn't start production on time and just kept the '69 body going. Fischer, eventually gave up on the faulty dies and started all over and that ran into the strike time, so the '70 model didn't come out until after that. This wasn't a planned mid-year introduction and to refer to the '70 as a 70.5 isn't accurate from that standpoint. Yes, it was only produced for half a year, but GM didn't intend that to happen. And yes, the 2nd gen body was a love it or hate it and there wasn't much neutral ground between them around where I grew up and lived.
As for poor sales numbers after that, remember the mandates for emissions taking effect in '71 and low hp numbers and then in '73, this country was in a serious fuel shortage as well as rising prices of both fuel and cars having an effect on new car sales.

Not exactly.

The 69 was in production for about 15 months due to the 70's late intro due to quarter panel forming problems (not a strike)
243,085/15 = 16206 per month

The 70 was in production for 7 months (January thru July) =17,843 per month. So, on per month basis, the 70 outsold the 69's!

71's did drop due to a strike and due to the general, industry wide fall in performance car sales. This was continued into 72 with an even longer strike and perceived performance dropping due to emissions and insurance skyrocketing on performance cars.

https://www.camaros.org/geninfo.shtml#extended69

Thanks for the clarifications Mitch and Dave, I didn't know the '69s were built that long. Also didn't know there was more than one strike.