Second Generation

The 1970½ Launch

The second generation went on sale on February 26, 1970, months into the model year. That is where the enthusiast name "1970½" comes from; Chevrolet's own designation was simply 1970. A strike often gets the blame, but the documented cause was tooling at Fisher Body. The new rear quarter-panel dies gave so much trouble that they were modified, then redesigned and rebuilt, a delay of four to five months.

The 1972 Strike

A 174-day UAW strike at Norwood, Ohio, stopped Camaro and Firebird production from April to September 1972. The Camaro White Book reprint in GM's archive says about 1,100 partly assembled cars were scrapped over the cost of meeting 1973 bumper and emission requirements. Other accounts differ on their condition and fate. This is a retrospective explanation, not a traced factory disposal ledger. Reported production totals differ by five cars, 68,651 versus 68,656; the Norwood feature retains the sources and discrepancies.

GM is widely reported to have considered dropping both the Camaro and the Firebird to simplify compliance with the new safety, emissions and economy rules, and to have kept them after pushback from dealers and owners. No GM planning document recording a formal decision has surfaced.

The Z28: Dropped and Brought Back

For 1970–71 the Z28 used the LT-1 350, borrowed from the Corvette once Trans-Am's rules let teams de-stroke a larger engine to meet the unchanged 305-cubic-inch limit. The Camaro version was rated at 360 hp gross against the Corvette's 370, a difference put down to the exhaust.

The high-compression, solid-lifter formula couldn't survive unleaded fuel and catalytic converters, and the Z28 was dropped for 1975 and 1976. It came back in the spring of 1977, pushed less by Camaro demand than by Pontiac. The Firebird Trans Am sold more than 46,000 cars in 1976, about 42 percent of all Firebirds, and Chevrolet had nothing to answer it. The reborn Z28 sold 14,349 in its short first season, and the Camaro outsold the Mustang for the first time.

A battered mid-1970s Camaro later became Bumblebee's "before" form in the 2007 Transformers film; that story is on the fifth-generation page.

How the Horsepower Fell

The Z28's LT-1 shows how the muscle era ended on paper. Chevrolet's February 1970 table gives 11.0:1 compression and 360 hp gross. For 1971 compression dropped to 9.0:1 for unleaded fuel; the revised January sheet prints both 330 hp gross and 275 hp net at 5,600 rpm. The 1972 sheet gives 255 hp net at 5,600 rpm. The same-basis published change from 275 net to 255 net is 20 hp; subtracting 255 net from 330 gross mixes methods. These factory ratings do not measure a particular surviving car's output.

The SS big block was badged 396 but displaced 402 cubic inches from 1970, as the factory tables show. The familiar "nobody would buy an SS402" explanation is not established as Chevrolet's motive by the sheets. It went from 350 hp gross in 1970 to 300 gross and 260 net in 1971. 1972 was the last year of the SS 396 and of any factory big-block Camaro. The reprinted White Book's table gives 970, while its own narrative says 930; the 1972 page retains that disagreement rather than treating either as a traced factory production count.

Split Bumpers and Big Bumpers

The most collectible second-generation look is the split bumper. It came only with the Rally Sport package and only from 1970 to 1973: a body-color Endura surround, two small chrome bumperettes in place of a full-width bumper, and round parking lamps above them. RS could be combined with SS or Z28. Only a 1970 car has a fender emblem reading "Camaro by Chevrolet," and 1972–73 grilles have fewer, larger openings than 1970–71.

The 5-mph bumper standard ended the look for 1974. A large aluminum bumper, a matching rear bumper and wraparound taillamps added about seven inches and more than 200 lb, just as the fuel crisis made weight matter most. Body-color urethane covers replaced the aluminum bumpers for 1978.

Luxury Models and the Model Mix

The comfort model could outnumber the performance version in production. Type LT, introduced for 1973, had 65,635 cars built in 1978 against the Z28's 54,907. Berlinetta replaced it for 1979 with dual pinstripes and cloth buckets (color-keyed aluminum wheels cost extra) and had 67,236 built in its first year, behind the Z28's 84,877. Removable T-top roof panels reached the Camaro in 1978, after Pontiac had offered them on the Firebird, and went on 9,875 cars that year.

The Camaro Becomes the IROC Car

The International Race of Champions began in 1973 with identical Porsche 911 Carrera RSRs, then switched to identically prepared Camaros for its second series in 1975 because they were cheaper to run. The Camaro was the IROC car for twelve seasons, 1975–80 and 1984–89. That is the lineage behind the IROC-Z name Chevrolet licensed for the third generation; see the racing history.