Ran into a 2010 SS camaro today...

[CanAmNova]

Except it's the size of a school bus...

I love the Camaro, but the dash is a little bland. Steering wheel and gauges look fine to me, just the passenger side has nothing.

The Challenger, it actually kind of made sense to go full-retro on it, since there was only one style of them. Even in good economic conditions, this would be a 3-5 year design, most likely with nothing to follow it, since there's little room for change. Toward the end of the 3-5 years, they'll be adding horsepower and colors in order to keep selling new ones.

The Mustang IMHO painted themselves into a corner on the styling... they really can't do much to update their current design, and coming up with a new design to follow it will be very difficult. Who wants to buy a 2012 Mustang II ??? They'll have to go back to "modern" looking in the next generation, and I think it will be a tough sell after this design, since they changed their entire consumer base (from young kids and women, to middle aged men) getting those people that used to buy modern looking Mustangs back will be tough.

The Camaro evolved for 35 years, so taking a giant step back and cloning a 1st gen would have been a mistake, if they want to keep building the Camaro in the future. If this Camaro return is a 3-5 year thing with no intention to keep going beyond that, then it probably would have worked well for them. I'm hoping this design was "planned obsolescence" in order to keep building them for many years to come. They built a car they could continue to make changes to, to keep selling them later.

IMHO, most of the internet critics of any of these cars only think about what they want right now with no thought put into what it will take to keep selling them in the future. They want you to like this style, but they want you to like the next one even better, so you trade it in for a new one.

I'm gonna have to disagree with you on this one. I think that talented designers would have no problem evolving the designs of any of these cars for a next generation. Are you really saying that the early seventies Mustang had to stylistically evolve into the Mustang II? What if the gas crunch had never hit in the seventies and the muscle car era had just continued and evolved from the late sixties into the seventies. Those designs themes would have kept going and changing. It could be the same way with this new generation of cars, they can be altered and changed over time. Heck, they've already done it with the 2010 Mustang! They changed it just enough to freshen the design and make it desirable to a new set of buyers. Why couldn't this be done for the Challenger and the Camaro as well? Besides, a lot of iconic cars from the past got that way because they changed very little over the years, some examples: VW Beetle, Mini Cooper, 2nd Gen Camaro and Firebird (ran for 11 years), '87-'93 Mustang (six years with almost no changes at all).

If I may stir the pot a little further, I think that a lot of the people that are putting these new cars down have short memories. I grew up in the seventies and eighties. I remember when the Camaro and Mustang were OK cars, but they always had major flaws. First you couldn't get a manual with the Camaro, then you couldn't get it with the TPI 350. The Mustang always had crappy brakes, it didn't even have disc brakes on the back. Oh and let's remember that all through the eighties these cars only put out less than 250 HP. Don't even get me started on the Challenger and Charger in the eighties with their fwd and four cylinders. The nineties saw some improvements in the Camaro and Mustang but they still had some major flaws. The Camaro suffered from a bland design IMO, not to mention a huge hump in the passenger foot well for the cat--who's brilliant idea was that one? The Mustang's handleing left a lot to be desired. Anyway, my point is that I'm thrilled to see this new generation of muscle cars! They are really what I've been waiting for for many years--cars with great handleing, great brakes, powerfull engines, great styling--really what else do we want? There is not going to be a perfect car out there, it's never going to happen. There will always be small compromises, but I think that there are very few compromises with any of this new batch of muscle cars. Besides do we really want something so watered down that it pleases everyone all the time?