Camaro: From sketchpad to street

In August of 2006, with approval for a production version in hand, a large team of GM designers and engineers began working on the project. The concept car was, basically, all design with practically no real engineering. It had a top speed of 40 miles per hour, no ventilation, no side windows and, of course, no consideration given to occupant safety.

The Camaro was not going to be based on any existing GM "vehicle architecture." GM turned to the rear-wheel-drive experts at the company's Australian Holden division to begin the engineering that would underlie the Camaro.

Engineers and designers began assembling the computer code that describes each part inside and outside the car. Computer models of the car were put through digital wind-tunnel tests and crash tests before the first hand-built test cars were even created.

NEXT: Building the first cars