Chevrolet Camaro

The Camaro is made by General Motors under its Chevrolet nameplate, and it is considered a "pony car", with some versions being beefy enough to attain muscle car status. The Camaro first went on sale September 29, 1966 for the '67 model year, and it was meant to go head-to-head with the Ford Mustang. The Camaro shared components and a platform with Pontiac's Firebird, which also made its debut in 1967.

Some executives at GM believed that the Corvair was a better competitor for the Mustang, but that was not the case due to the Corvair's stodgy styling, awkward dash-mounted shift lever and rear-engine design. Therefore, the Camaro was born. It was heavily based on the Chevy II/Nova, but was stronger. The Camaro and its brother, the Firebird, were both F-bodies and encompassed thirty-six model years.

There were four generations of the Camaro before production stopped in 2002. There were a number of factors that contributed to the premature demise of the Camaro, such as lack of safety features, sluggish sales and contract disputes with the Canadian government. However, the nameplate came back as a concept car which became the 5th generation Camaro; production began on March 16, 2009. The new Camaro had a prominent role in the Transformers movie as main character "Bumblebee".

Those that waited for the return of the Chevrolet Camaro were richly rewarded with the 2009 release of the retro-looking automobile. Not to be eclipsed, Dodge released its bad-to-the-bone Challenger in 2008, and the new Mustang came out as a 2010 model, paving the way for another three-way pony car shootout.