The 2010 Camaro goes on sale in Japan on December 5, and our friends at the Camaro5 forums have collected together various videos of the cars being off-loaded from freighters and arranged at promotional events. Both the V6 LS/LT/RS models and SS models will be offered.
Two things stand out in our mind: (1) No one succumbs to the lure of a burnout. (2) All the cars are left-hand-drive. You might think the Camaro would be easy to reconfigure for right-hand-drive given its Australian origins. But that would add cost, and if you're not going to sell many Camaros in Japan, what's the point? But we know from experience that the novelty of sitting on the wrong side of the car wears off in a day or so.
Three more videos after the jump. The last video shows a modified Yanase Camaro SS. Yanase Global Motors & Co is a dealer group that handles a big chunk of all the foreign-car imports coming into Japan. It hasn't been an easy year, though, since in addition to GM products, Yanase imports Chryslers and Jeeps.
cwc1 says:
05:13 PM, 11/24/09
If GM is serious about selling more cars in foreign markets, they should sell right hand drive cars in the countries where they're appropriate. Would Americans accept a right-hand-drive-only car from Japan, England, or Australia? Maybe 40 years ago, but not hardly today. So why would they expect that there will be enough buyers of those same countries who'd buy a left hand drive car?
alman08 says:
08:18 PM, 11/25/09
because it's American being American and failure is the sole answer.