2008 L.A. Auto Show: Disappointing Camaro Interior

Thanks for the informative post, James! :thumbsup:

The tach and speedo look really small! Especially the speedo.

The shifter looks really out of place.

With a starting price in the low $20's and a 300hp DOHC direct injected VVT V6 as the base engine I surely wasnt expecting top notch interior materials.

GM is on its last count down. In the end, Mustang seems to find another lucky break as the only super American muscle car.

Bite it iancar. I'd take a independent rear over over the best plastics in the world. Something Mustang doesn't offer and the interior of the Mustang was absolute crap up till now and it's still no model of perfection.

Seeing as how they didn't want anyone in this car (or the genesis most likely), it doesn't sound like this is meant to be the finished product. Heck, most of the pre-production test vehicles that they lend to journalists have issues that get ironed out in the last few months.

oh no's a hard dash. OMMGGG.

really now. talk about what is a non issue. I never found the need to foundle or touch 99% of the dash unless I was cleaning it.

Journalist ie domestic bashers (except when their after big 3 cash), just get horny over soft touch dashes, what do you guys do? Sleep with them or something?

opfreak, perceived quality is HUGE in today's market. It's one of the reasons that the American auto makers have lost a large amount of market share over recent years. You may not fondle your dash, but interior quality is important to a lot of buyers.

Having said that, I'll reiterate what other folks have mentioned: In a twenty-three thousand dollar car with RWD, IRS, a 6-speed, and 300 ponies, I would expect to make a few compromises. Honestly, I still can't wait to test drive one.

"perceived quality is HUGE in today's market."

Shows how great cars really are these days. When you have to be that picky to find something wrong, you know car makers have come a long way.

firstwagon,

This is not being picky one little bit. Car interior IS one of the most important aspects of a car - that's a fact. I understand gm probably wanted to set the price on camaro as low as possible to be competitive and for that some compromises had to be reached. The bad interior was one of them. I wouldn't be surprised if there will be more.

"opfreak, perceived quality is HUGE in today's market. It's one of the reasons that the American auto makers have lost a large amount of market share over recent years. You may not fondle your dash, but interior quality is important to a lot of buyers."

Spare me. The interiors of most affordable Japanese cars is no better than the average American car. People kill me acting like Honda interiors are up to VW standards. They arent even close.

The camaro has a distinctive and well built interior. Thats what counts. This car starts at $24k-$25k and has a state of the art DI V6 STANDARD. I could care less about the softness of the plastics. I have to find any proof that "soft" plastics cost more than harder ones. HArd doesnt mean cheap necessarily.

I don't understand why they crammed all the controls and buttons in one tiny little space. This is a large car, why does the console have to be crowded? They had all the space in the world.

"This is not being picky one little bit. Car interior IS one of the most important aspects of a car - that's a fact. "

I suppose it could be important to some but as long as I thought about it I couldn't think of a single feature that wasn't more important the what sort of plastic is on the dash.

Engine, transmission, ride, handling, mpg, emmisions, interior space, trunk space, audio systm, defroster performance, seat comfort, reliability, durabilty... all more important.

Sorry.

phhff, before I bought my rabbit, I sat in over a dozen cars, and test drove quite a few. In the starting under 20k market. no car stood out to me screaming. OMG look at how great this dash plastic is. And never once did I feel the need to go and touch it to see if it was some degree of 'hard'

after my 1st thosand miles with the rabbit. I did notice one thing, the smaller gaps get, the easier it is to see mis aligments. Even if the misalighment is small, because the gaps are thiny its easy to tell.

That, and the VW stock radio blows. plans to change are well underway.

I posted this on the Camaro5 forums, and this was the response of one of the mods:

"The interior of that car isn't production-spec. This straight from Indy:

"The textures were actually sprayed on for the shows, if you rubbed hard enough, it would all come off."

Which is why they're keeping people like that journalist(^) from touching it...

The materials used will be very similar to the inside of an Impala."

This person was at the Indy Bash where the Camaro was on display for the Camaro community and the development team was on hand for discussions and questions. This isn't unusual at all for GM to have pre-production models with inferior interior materials. I sat in a pre-production 2008 Malibu with an awful interior, but the production model was worlds away. Wait for a full production model before making judgments. Though I do agree with the sentiment that since we're getting 300 hp, IRS, etc etc etc, starting in the low $20Ks, there will be some compromises, like no nav option and lower quality (but not poor quality) interior materials.

I dont mind hard plastics as every car has them. What I do hate is misaligned trim, large panel gaps and bad textures. Give me a well rounded, roomy, high quality, functional, efficient, well built interior and Ill be happy regardless of manufacturer.

As far as the Camaro is concerned, I hope the interior materials and overall build quality can match the Malibus as I was impressed with its percieved quality.

The one thing that bugs me about some GM interiors is the parts bin pieces and bits used in cars that arent in the same price range. For example the steering wheel in the $110K Corvette ZR1 is bascially the same one found in a $22K Malibu. That makes no sense.

HA4, I think that's the biggest plus side to the Camaro's interior - almost nothing is parts bin. Maybe the ergonomics aren't the best. It might not have the best materials available. But compare it to the Mustang and especially the Challenger, and its uniqueness comes off strong. Now if only that could be extended to the Vette...

Dear Mr. Reviewer, had you done more research on the production of that car, you'd have learned that this interior is still considered "placeholder". The texture was actually sprayed on, and not the final material being used in the production car. The materials on display in that car were for pre-production display only, and Scott Settlemire, the Camaro Product Manager, has confirmed that the production materials will be of the highest quality (think Malibu). It was mentioned that the paint job on the display Camaro interiors could actually be rubbed off. That's probably why the Camaro staff girl got upset when you tried to sit in it.

However, it's good to see the positive mention of the interior's styling, as that will definitely remain the same on the production cars.

Just wait until you see the interior lighting in action!

then why would gm put up a camaro with shitty interior on display and not let anybody sit in it? Stupid mistake.