For what seems like eons on US roads, highways and race tracks Chevrolet Camaros, Pontiac Firebirds have rivaled and sometimes even beaten Ford’s Mustang as America’s most popular sports coupes.

How do you define a sports car after all? Is it the distillation of everything that a brilliant engineer has learned after years in “the business”? Or maybe a mildly softened version of a competition car? In truth however a sports car is more likely to be a pretty body grafted onto an ordinary saloon.

If that strategy was good enough for British MG, surely it was good enough for General Motors G.M… And true to form, General Motors followed that form perfectly well with their Chevrolet Camaro and Pontiac Firebird. But was it justified for automobiles like the Camaro and Firebird to be called “sports cars”. Well it depends on your viewpoint, what cars you drive and perhaps what auto books and racing magazines you read.

Does a sports car half the time being fixed? Does it have to leak when it rains? Does a fifty-mile trip have to mean a bout of kidney dialysis for driver and passengers alike and does the presence of more than two seats or a steel top disqualify it ?

Then how about trend setting styling? How about competition success in every major venue available for production-based cars? How about the accolades for best handling in North America ; conferred by most respected automobile publications on the North American continent and NAFTA areas ?

It seems clear that however mundane the genesis of the Chevy Camaro and Pontiac Firebird, the end results merit the label no doubt what so ever.

The Camaro and Firebird – collectively known as the “F-car” (or cars) – in General Motors’s alphabet soup nomenclature designations – are usually thought of and categorized of as G.M.’s response to the resounding success of Ford’s Mustangs in 1964.
The realities of lead time in the car business mean however that in purist’s terms this is not strictly or entirely true. Its true and substantiated fact that G.M.’s stylists had been working on small sports cars almost continually during the last 1950’s and early 1960’s.

In fact G.M. had almost started the U.S. trend towards affordable sporting machinery by dropping bucket seats and a floor-mounted four-speed into their rear-engined Corvair. The resulting Monza Coupe and roadster could be said to be among the only bright spots in the Corvair’s somewhat tainted history. Winnipeg based auto consultant Billy Simpson notes that while the Corvair overall was a good car – it was North American US and Canadian drivers who might of well be assigned most of the blame since they did not know how to drive these rear engined vehicles ( at a time when almost U.S. made cars were front engine, rear wheel drive with a drive shaft.) Worse yet in panic and emergency situations they reverted to earlier driver training learned on standard configuration front engine , rear wheel drive driving habits. Yet it was Ford who recognized the vast potential of the youth market of the 1960’s. Ford responded with the Mustang product in 1964. One year later and 418,000 automotive unit sales later the world was convinced as the Ford Marketing slogan went – that “Ford definitely had a better idea”.

Yet in the end its all a matter of perspectives and even interest. Is a Ford Mustang a sports car ? Most would say yes.
If so then both the Ford Mustang beaters – the Pontiac Firebird and Chevrolet Camaro can be considered sports cars or at least sports models of basic made G.M. domestic made US cars as well.

Author Bio: Terry S. Vostor
Winnipeg Manitoba Ford Dealer
Wpg South Fort Garry Lindenwoods Whyte Ridge Waverley Auto Malls
Pembina
Highway St Vital Ford Mustang