Chevrolet Camaro manual confirmed

Fear not, three-pedal fans: Holden Special Vehicles will offer a manual Chevrolet Camaro in Australia after all.

But you are going to have to wait a while for it.

“Absolutely, our intent is to have a manual,” HSV managing director Tim Jackson told motoring.com.au.

“We know we have a customer base that wants a manual, we are working on it and I imagine we will have a manual as we move into late 2019.”

The timing means the manual version of HSV’s locally-converted Camaro 2SS will likely be part of the facelift range unveiled in the USA. The Camaros in this year’s initial Australian allotment are pre-facelift MY18 models.

HSV copped criticism for the auto-only specification of its initial Camaro 2SS coupe, first deliveries of which commence later than expected in August.

Those cars are European specification, which because of a number of equipment fitments made sense to select for the conversion process.

But that spec didn’t have manual available with it, hence the transmission’s initial omission from the line-up.

“The specification of vehicle that made the most sense for us in this initial launch is an auto-only,” confirmed Jackson.

HSV has yet to release pricing for the 2SS – that happens late June or early July – which it is converting to right-hand drive locally at its new Melbourne factory and will be available from selected Chevrolet-badged Holden dealers in Australia and New Zealand.

Jackson said HSV would deliver “around 500” Camaros to dealers in 2018, of which motoring.com.au understands about 25 per cent have been sold so far.

He said some Chevrolet/Holden dealers had already sold their allotment of the Ford Mustang fighter, but stressed the priority was not to over-commit to too much supply in the early stages of the program, which HSV originally said would involve up to 1000 Camaros a year.

“I would rather be conservative in the number and be surprised on the upside than the reverse. This is a long-term program, but you can disappoint yourself from a business perspective if you get ahead of yourself.”

The intricacies of local right-hand conversion had blown out launch timing for the Camaro slightly, Jackson confirmed.

“It’s maybe a month delayed. It just takes time.

“It’s been a relatively smooth process so far. There have been no major surprises or curveballs in the process, but it just takes time to do it properly.

“We would rather make sure we have all our i’s dotted and t’s crossed with that car. No-one is more excited than us to get that car on to the road, but we also want to make sure it’s a great product when we get it there.”

Jackson confirmed HSV is already thinking about expanding the Camaro line-up to additional models such as the Nurburgring lap record-setting ZL1 LE.

“I’d be lying if I said we aren’t interested in looking at it. We need to get everyone aligned and make sure we can get the core vehicle and we can do any engineering that’s required to make sure it’s compliant.

“Because we are a niche program we can look at.”

The Camaro is part of new era for HSV, which is also soon rolling out the Chevrolet Silverado 2500 and has already launched a modified version of the Holden Colorado dubbed the SportsCat.