Friday November 12, 3:53 pm Eastern Time
GM Denies Camaro, Firebird Report
PONTIAC, Mich. (AP) -- General Motors Corp. denied Friday a newspaper report
that it
would stop making the Chevrolet Camaro and Pontiac Firebird models next
year.
The Oakland Press of Pontiac quoted an unnamed senior GM official in a story
in its Friday
editions who said the Camaro, the Firebird and the Trans Am version of the
Firebird will be
dropped from GM's product lineup in 2000.
``I'm not going to kid you, the nameplates are going away for a while,'' the
official, who asked not to be identified, told the
paper.
But GM said the sport coupes, which have sold slowly, would remain in
production.
``While as a policy, General Motors Corp. does not publicly discuss
long-term future product plans, recent reports of the
Chevrolet Camaro and Pontiac Firebird's pending demise are inaccurate,'' GM
spokesman Brian Akre said.
``Nothing has changed concerning GM's product plans for the Camaro and
Firebird. In fact, special editions of the Camaro
and Firebird are in development for the 2002 model year.''
Speculation about the future of both cars intensified last month after
Canadian Auto Workers union President Buzz Hargrove
disclosed that GM planned to close its assembly plant in Ste. Therese,
Quebec, where the cars are made, by fall 2000.
But Akre said GM committed in the CAW contract to keeping the plant open
through September 2002. GM does not have
any vehicles assigned to the plant after that date, but is still mulling its
options, he added.
The Camaro and Firebird have been an integral part of the GM model line
since the late 1960s, when the first models appeared
in an effort to compete with the popular Ford Mustang.
Combined sales have dropped to less than half of the 150,000 units GM
officials had thought they could sell when current
models were planned in the early 1990s, the newspaper said.
Through October, production of the Camaro totaled 35,212, down 16 percent
from last year. But production of the Firebird
was up six percent to 29,175.
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