Listen, friends, I like the Camaro as much as anyone here. I own two of them, and one of those was my very first car. But it’s no secret that the Camaro, in its most recent form, simply was not working. Whether it was the product itself or the product’s placement in the market, General Motors was not seeing a sustainable return on its investment. So, how about this: forget about the Camaro and launch a Pontiac Trans Am instead.

While many automotive brands have launched multiple storied and successful models, it can be argued that every automotive brand is defined by one icon. Ford has the Mustang, Toyota has the Supra, Volkswagen has the Beetle, and Chevrolet? Well, Chevrolet has the Corvette. That’s right, like it or not, as great as the Camaro is, was, and can be, it will never rival the Corvette.

The Chevrolet Corvette ZR1X Quail Silver Limited Edition retails for $241,395.

Corvette Is King

That’s especially true when you look at the sales numbers. Chevy, GM’s ‘value brand’, is now selling $207K Corvettes, and the Corvette is consistently a best seller in its segment. In contrast, the brand was struggling to sell Camaro LT1 models that were discounted from a relatively cheap, for a V8 performance car, $40K. Across town, the Mustang GT, Camaro’s forever foe, is selling great at a starting price of $46K while expanding further upmarket. To me, that says the Camaro has an image problem, an affliction a well-executed Trans Am likely would not suffer.

Increasingly, Millennials and younger generations are making purchase decisions based on how a brand reflects their values. Above all, they want an authentic product that provides an experience. These generations have defined brand loyalty as a means of expressing their identity, and that’s where Pontiac’s fabled Trans Am could, in this author’s opinion, knock it out of the park! ‘The kids’ are still wearing new Firebird shirts over 15 years after Pontiac was discontinued. Surely the General has noticed this trend, and surely it is, at the very least, conducting some research on the subject.

If we dig into who quoting demographics, it is no surprise that Trans Ams are most popular amongst Gen X-ers. Roughly 40 percent of the quotes received by Hagerty for a 82-92 Trans Am comes from that group. The real news is that Millennials are beginning to overtake Baby Boomers in activity. Both are hovering around 28 percent of quotes received. In the past year, activity for Boomers has dropped 2 percent over the past year while Millennials increased their share by 6 percent. – Hagerty

Long Live Pontiac

Unless you’ve been living off the grid for the past two decades, you know the story of Pontiac. GM’s fabled Excitement Division that, with the help of ‘Maximum’ Bob Lutz, was supposed to grow into essentially what Dodge has become – a three-car powerhouse, geared toward enthusiasts, that required minimal investment. Unfortunately, when Wall Street tanked the economy and GM couldn’t find funding to survive the recession, Chapter 11 scuttled those plans. The fact was, while Pontiac was GM’s second-best-selling division at the time, the brand produced very little profit and lacked a global footprint – two things that were essential for all ‘New GM’ divisions. Sadly, Pontiac had eroded into a bargain Chevrolet knockoff that didn’t fit into the General’s post-bankruptcy goal of profit over market share.

If you know all that, you also know about the recent hoopla around the Pontiac brand. The infamous Car & Driver ad, GM Design releasing the final Pontiac concept, various publications calling for the brand’s return, GM constantly renewing patents, and, of course, GM’s odd Threads message. Unless the company just has a cruel sense of humor, I’d venture a guess that it has at least thought about the idea of bringing Pontiac back.

Driving Excitement

The difference now is that the lane is wide open for a new Pontiac muscle car – an authentic product that, perhaps unlike the Camaro, could step outside the Corvette’s shadow and sell the unique experience lifestyle buyers increasingly crave. While Alfred Sloan was a visionary, it is easy to argue that his Ladder of Success mindset, in which people ascend through pricepoints, models, and brands, has become outdated. Simply put, present-day Camaro and Corvette buyers are different, and Trans Am and Corvette buyers could be even more diverse. Evergreen value and the latest tech can be found in everything from a $20K Chevy Trax to a six-figure Cadillac. Today’s buyers seek brand cache – something a new Trans Am would have in spades.

The Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 NASCAR Cup car currently competes without any Camaro branding.

Chevrolet is about to head into its second season racing ghost Camaros in NASCAR, NHRA, Supercars, and most other motorsports. How long can the brand earn exemptions, and how long will the rapidly aging Camaro remain competitive? Will the Blazer SS eventually have some kind of motorsports tie-in? I’m betting yes, since the crossover could easily be compared to NASCAR’s ABB concept, and the first official photos were shot at Trackhouse Racing. But rumors abound that the Xfinity series could eventually adopt EVs, with the Blazer, Mustang Mach-E, and potentially many other manufacturers dueling it out. The obvious solution for Cup is a new Pontiac Trans Am.

It Seems Simple

With regulations loosening and the EV market maturing at a much slower rate than initially predicted, GM has decided to renew some of its internal combustion programs. While the company always planned to continue ICE offerings for as long as the public demanded them, it has now announced that it will reinvest in those offerings. With that in mind, The General still has the perfect platform to utilize for a new Trans Am: Alpha II. Found under the Cadillac CT4 and CT5, Alpha II is essentially an enthusiast’s dream. In addition to supporting both manual and automatic transmissions, the platform fits a variety of engine options, from the 2.0-liter LSY 4-cylinder to the twin-turbo High Feature V6 and epic LT4 V8.

Speaking of the LT4, I highly doubt the $160K Escalade V is taking up all the production capacity freed up by the cancellation of the $74K Camaro ZL1. Also, coincidentally, this wouldn’t be Pontiac’s first encounter with the Alpha platform, as the doomed successor to the G6 was widely rumored to be one of the first Alpha programs considered.

GM’s Lansing Grand River manufacturing facility.

Naturally, the Trans Am would be manufactured where all American Alpha cars are assembled: GM’s Lansing Grand River facility. Theoretically, this should be feasible since Camaro’s cancellation freed up capacity. Not to mention, the Cadillac CT4’s uncertain future could free up even more capacity and almost certainly render the facility underutilized.

The Chevrolet Connection

During Pontiac’s final days, ‘Old GM’ made it clear that, from a sales standpoint, the company had three divisions: Chevrolet, Buick/GMC/Pontiac, and Cadillac. But these days it’s hard to imagine, especially with this motorsports slant, that a Pontiac Trans Am would be peddled through the Buick/GMC sales channel. GMC continues to push upmarket, and Buick seems more focused on design and usability. Cadillac is its own animal, with IMSA, F1, and, perhaps more importantly, an already established Alpha II stable that would certainly be prioritized over the Pontiac Trans Am. That leaves Chevrolet – this time equipped with a muscle car offering that would have the ability to step outside of the Corvette’s massive shadow.

The future Chevrolet showroom from GM’s 2025 Dealership Image Program. Needs more excitement, right?

Unfortunately, the Camaro’s chapter is closing. Perhaps temporarily, perhaps indefinitely. But GM still has the tools, talent, and heritage to fill the void with something truly iconic. A reborn Pontiac Trans Am that’s lean, mean, and dripping with brand cache could give the company a modern muscle car that stands on its own, instead of being ‘the other V8 Chevy’. It’s a chance to utilize existing engineering and manufacturing capacity to cash in on decades of nostalgia and give untapped buyers a reason to storm Chevy showrooms with their wallets wide open. Pontiac may have been buried in 2010, but the Trans Am is still alive in the hearts of enthusiasts old and new. All GM has to do is build it.