End of the Gas-Engine Camaro Opens a New Door for Muscle Cars

The modern Camaro shares its “Alpha” platform with Cadillac’s best sports sedans, including G.M.’s groundbreaking magnetic suspensions, a technology now adopted by Ferrari, Audi and others. For top Camaros and Shelby Mustangs, the old “muscle car” term hardly applies: These are four-seat sports cars that can meet or beat any big-name European rival, including in the curves.

In 2017, the Camaro ZL1 1LE slayed more giants. The 650-horsepower showroom Camaro wound through Germany’s benchmark, 12.9-mile Nürburgring circuit in 7 minutes, 16 seconds. That topped several supercars costing three or four times its $69,995 price, including a Ferrari 488 GTB. In 2021, Elon Musk sent his best, 1,020-horsepower Tesla Model S Plaid to the ’ring and tweeted an unverified lap time: 14 seconds slower than the humble Chevy, an eternity on track, despite the Tesla’s enormous edge in electric horsepower.

The Camaro name isn’t bound for the junkyard, with G.M. executives broadly hinting it will return. But as the automaker vows to phase out internal combustion models by 2035, analysts say, any reconstituted Camaro will surely be an E.V. or a hybrid.

Mr. Alterman believes automakers can find a small, yet meaningful, place for distinctive, high-personality cars. “Everything else is a potato-shaped minivan surrogate, or a pickup truck,” he said.

If the Mustang was a playful ray of sunshine, the 1967 Camaro had a mean streak, especially in hopped-up V-8 editions. Pressed for the origin of the Camaro name, Pete Estes, the Chevy general manager at the time, quipped that it meant “a vicious animal that eats Mustangs.” A media blitz included a touring stage play (“Camaro!”) and a women’s clothing line.