We already know that GM will pull the plug on their Australian production facilities in 2017, which in turn leads to the death of the Holden Commodore and its American cousin, the Chevy SS.
Right? Wrong. As it turns out, the Chevrolet SS will stay with us for a bit longer, at least for the MY2017, despite the fact that sales are not what someone would call ‘booming’.
And if that’s not enough good news for some of you out there, Chevrolet is considering a successor for the SS sedan, according to the Camaro’s chief engineer Al Oppenheiser who spoke to Car Advice.
Oppenheiser believes that the Chevrolet SS is a great car and he sounds not that surprised about the slow sales of the V8 performance sedan.
“It sells what it’s supposed to,” he said. “And we haven’t announced an end date to it, so we’re just … we know that there are some decisions made on the Zeta [platform], that are imminent, and right now we’re just focused on the new ’17 model, which is great. It has the LS3 with the manual and the active exhausts, and it’s a great car.”
Oppenheiser also responded with a ‘maybe’, when asked if a succeeding global model is on the cards without providing further details.
When the SS eventually goes away, it will mean the official retirement of the Zeta platform, which was used widely on cars like the Commodore and the previous-gen Camaro. The new lighter and more compact Alpha platform which underpins the Cadillac ATS and the latest Camaro, could be used for a successor, especially for right-hand drive markets like the Australian one.
However, GM is still trying to decide whether to offer the Camaro in right-hand drive configuration as the move needs to be financially sustainable before they give the green light.
“Let me just tell you that the leadership of our company – Mark Reuss was the managing director of Holden, he completely understands the market,” Oppenheiser said. “If anybody understands what we could do and if we could do it, it would be him.”
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