May 22, 2012 at 5:40pm by David Gluckman
Al Oppenheiser sweats the details. The Camaro chief engineer pulled the frameless rearview mirror off of his ’68 and told those responsible for the modern car’s reflective surfaces to “make me one like that.” This throwback element will be standard equipment on all 2013 versions of the retro-futuristic Camaro; we saw it in person as installed in the preproduction Camaro ZL1 convertible Oppenheiser drove to our office yesterday.
A longer list of gadgets is being packed into modern mirror housings, tasking the black plastic bricks with more than just depicting what’s behind you. Although modern safety requirements and first-gen styling cues (plus a heavy component set) resulted in a porky fifth-gen car that you can’t see out of very well—unless you’re in a convertible with the top down—the mirror is downsizing because Oppenheiser wanted to put it on a diet. And because he could.
Ironically, it’s additional technology that allowed for the slimmer unit. It no longer needs to house a display for the rear camera, as the feed will go to the center-stack touch screen on 2013 Camaros so equipped. It still will host the OnStar controls; you can just make out the logo along the bottom edge of the glass. The mirror still will auto-dim, too. Plus the frameless design just looks cool.
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It seems others within GM agree. Oppenheiser tells us the new design has been well received and that we shouldn’t be surprised to see it show up on some other products. If it’s not already in the plan, we think the C7 Corvette would be a perfect candidate—squint hard enough and you might be able to see it in these spy photos of camo’d prototypes.
Tags: Chevrolet, Chevrolet Camaro, Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 |