2010 Chevrolet Camaro Backing Up Style With Substance

Behold: The 2010 Chevrolet Camaro in all its full-on production glory.

What? Well yes, it looks like that Camaro Concept we saw more than two and a half years ago at the 2006 Detroit Auto Show. And it looks exactly as you knew it would from two years of spy shots of the car under development. And it will look exactly like this when it goes on sale in March of next year. You expected what? That it would look like a Corsica or a Mark VIII?

Enthusiasts would no more forgive Chevrolet for watering down the stunning 2006 Camaro concept than they would forgive General Motors if it decided a year from now to cancel the Volt program. The concept, with its steely, all-business color, dark-tinted glass, pavement-skimming raked stance and fang-shaped side mirrors, looked like a 1969 Camaro designed by the Lockheed Skunk Works.

Of course, the 2010 Chevrolet Camaro production-specification cars pictured here — V6 models with 20-inch wheels that come as part of the RS trim package — don't get the slammed stance, chopped roof and black windows of the concept. Nor do they have the 22-inch rear and 21-inch front wheels of the concept.

The V8 model of the 2010 Chevrolet Camaro — called the SS — won't have that showcar ornamentation either. Chevy is holding back on revealing the SS for reasons that make sense only within the confines of GM's headquarters at the Renaissance Center in downtown Detroit, even though it looks very nearly identical to the V6 model with the RS package. (In case you were wondering, the SS will have the concept car's little mail-slot opening on the top of the front fascia. This particular aperture has no historical precedent in the world of Camaro and owes more to the Corvette Z06 or the Mini Cooper S.)

But we're still happy.

Tags: muscle car 2010 Inside Line motor Camaro Chevrolet General GM Motors Edmunds auto