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I thought this would be kind of interesting. This is how I remember it, if I'm off on my dates or what not, please correct me. I just thought it'd be fun to plot it all out.
Early 2005: A Canadian export PDF file - Cleveland_E.pdf - set the rumor mills on fire. It was some sort of presentation but it had tables of planned exports. Page 11 was the gold mine for Camaro enthusiasts - amongst other GM vehicles, one line stood out: Camaro, Zeta, 100,000. Model, platform, estimated products. I think it also had year - 2008 if I remember correctly, but I'm fuzzy on that part. I actually had saved it and had it hosted on meissenation.com ( Image here: http://meissenation.com/pictures/uno...nfirmation.jpg ) since then, but apparently in the most recent server move the file was corrupted.
Spring 2005: CGI images by Kris Thorton and others show up on the internet said to resemble a vehicle shown at a then-recent design studio. What I distinctly remember from the initial thread was someone posting that a few GM execs spit their coffee clear out of their mouth when they saw the images because the resemblance was "that close."
Summer 2005: I'm not going to mention names, but I was at Camaro Superfest and someone who works at GM was there. I talked to him for awhile and asked if he had seen any concept pics. He got really nervous and said he wouldn't say anything about it but to make sure I was at the NAIAS in 2006.
Late Summer / Early Fall 2005: The rumor was out - a Camaro concept would be revealed at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit on January 9th 2006. I distinctly remember CamaroZ28.com being the goto place for anything 5th gen.
~December 2005: Embargoed pictures of the clay mockups for the Camaro project are leaked onto the internet. Instantly, a mad frenzy was made for everyone to see and save the images because everyone knew the pictures would get taken down as soon as GM found out the images were out. The images are fairly public now. It was two clay concepts combined into one - split right down the middle.
~December 2005: A toy maker leaks CAD drawings of a Camaro diecast. The undercarraige was AMAZINGLY detailed on the Zeta architecture. Wish I still had the pictures - it'd be interesting to see how closely they resemble the production model now. It made all of us wishful thinkers believe that the Camaro was MUCH further along than anyone knew before because of how much CAD work had gone into the images we were looking at. Unfortunately, production didn't come as fast as we thought.
January 8th 2006: I can't remember which magazine it was but one of the mags created the announcement article for the reveal of the concept Camaro - including pictures. Some how or another someone googled and struck gold - the Google bot had crawled the article even though it was not linked to any "live" pages on the magazine's website. The link spread like wildfire. GM was of course upset and ordered the article to be taken down.
January 9th 2006: Some say there are days that you always remember for the rest of your life. I remember sitting at work and watching the NAIAS reveal live on GM's website. Goose bumps, shaking, and extremely excited. Great day in history!
August 2006: Camaro rally at the GM Tech Center. I remember calling in sick to go. A handful of us from the site were there - A decent group from WMCC, Tony, Matt, Pat, just to name a few. They announced the Camaro was successfully green lighted for production! It was a great celebration - the feedback from NAIAS was so great that they decided to move forward with the production.
-Funny how we're getting closer to present time and my memory is getting really fuzzy... it's going to skip around now, if anyone has anything to add inbetween please post up so I can compile it in.-
January 2007: Winding Road leaks the Camaro convertible concept. They had the article hosted before anyone else, if I remember correctly, and they posted it before the NAIAS reveal.
January 2007: Official reveal of the Camaro convertible concept.
June 2007: OK I had to add this in - I got a PM from Dominic (who no longer seems to be on the site) telling me that he talked to someone at GM and they might bring the concepts to the M&G. Shortly after (we're talking minutes, hours), Scott Settlemire registered on our site. I couldn't believe it and googled his e-mail to realize it really was Scott. Again, within a few minutes - hell maybe it was hours, it seemed like it all happened so quickly - I got a call from a 313 area code. I knew right then who it was - "Hey Brian, this is Scott Settlemire!" "HOLY SHIT! Er, I mean Hi!!!" Haha, Scott was pretty cool and told me he was going to be bringing some vehicles to our show but he needed to ensure there would be shade. No problem, tons of trees. I remember trembling while I was on the phone because I was in such shock and excitement. I got off the phone and ran upstairs and talked a mile a minute telling my dad about the phone conversation. The next day, the day of the Meet & Greet, I couldn't believe my eyes when Scott arrived. I about fainted when a big orange car hauler pulled in. I'll never forget one of his comments, "You don't mind if we have a Cadillac too, do you?"
I couldn't believe it - Cadillac Sixteen, Camaro Coupe concept, AND the Camaro Convertible concept. Unbelievable day, and one of the days that I'll always remember. It can't be left out that on that day I proposed to Angie right infront of everyone at the M&G. Mary Sue (Old Fart) and her daughters were front row for the show... I proposed like 10 feet in front of them
(Will post more shortly)
Early 2005: A Canadian export PDF file - Cleveland_E.pdf - set the rumor mills on fire. It was some sort of presentation but it had tables of planned exports. Page 11 was the gold mine for Camaro enthusiasts - amongst other GM vehicles, one line stood out: Camaro, Zeta, 100,000. Model, platform, estimated products. I think it also had year - 2008 if I remember correctly, but I'm fuzzy on that part. I actually had saved it and had it hosted on meissenation.com ( Image here: http://meissenation.com/pictures/uno...nfirmation.jpg ) since then, but apparently in the most recent server move the file was corrupted.
Spring 2005: CGI images by Kris Thorton and others show up on the internet said to resemble a vehicle shown at a then-recent design studio. What I distinctly remember from the initial thread was someone posting that a few GM execs spit their coffee clear out of their mouth when they saw the images because the resemblance was "that close."
Summer 2005: I'm not going to mention names, but I was at Camaro Superfest and someone who works at GM was there. I talked to him for awhile and asked if he had seen any concept pics. He got really nervous and said he wouldn't say anything about it but to make sure I was at the NAIAS in 2006.
Late Summer / Early Fall 2005: The rumor was out - a Camaro concept would be revealed at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit on January 9th 2006. I distinctly remember CamaroZ28.com being the goto place for anything 5th gen.
~December 2005: Embargoed pictures of the clay mockups for the Camaro project are leaked onto the internet. Instantly, a mad frenzy was made for everyone to see and save the images because everyone knew the pictures would get taken down as soon as GM found out the images were out. The images are fairly public now. It was two clay concepts combined into one - split right down the middle.
~December 2005: A toy maker leaks CAD drawings of a Camaro diecast. The undercarraige was AMAZINGLY detailed on the Zeta architecture. Wish I still had the pictures - it'd be interesting to see how closely they resemble the production model now. It made all of us wishful thinkers believe that the Camaro was MUCH further along than anyone knew before because of how much CAD work had gone into the images we were looking at. Unfortunately, production didn't come as fast as we thought.
January 8th 2006: I can't remember which magazine it was but one of the mags created the announcement article for the reveal of the concept Camaro - including pictures. Some how or another someone googled and struck gold - the Google bot had crawled the article even though it was not linked to any "live" pages on the magazine's website. The link spread like wildfire. GM was of course upset and ordered the article to be taken down.
January 9th 2006: Some say there are days that you always remember for the rest of your life. I remember sitting at work and watching the NAIAS reveal live on GM's website. Goose bumps, shaking, and extremely excited. Great day in history!
August 2006: Camaro rally at the GM Tech Center. I remember calling in sick to go. A handful of us from the site were there - A decent group from WMCC, Tony, Matt, Pat, just to name a few. They announced the Camaro was successfully green lighted for production! It was a great celebration - the feedback from NAIAS was so great that they decided to move forward with the production.
-Funny how we're getting closer to present time and my memory is getting really fuzzy... it's going to skip around now, if anyone has anything to add inbetween please post up so I can compile it in.-
January 2007: Winding Road leaks the Camaro convertible concept. They had the article hosted before anyone else, if I remember correctly, and they posted it before the NAIAS reveal.
January 2007: Official reveal of the Camaro convertible concept.
June 2007: OK I had to add this in - I got a PM from Dominic (who no longer seems to be on the site) telling me that he talked to someone at GM and they might bring the concepts to the M&G. Shortly after (we're talking minutes, hours), Scott Settlemire registered on our site. I couldn't believe it and googled his e-mail to realize it really was Scott. Again, within a few minutes - hell maybe it was hours, it seemed like it all happened so quickly - I got a call from a 313 area code. I knew right then who it was - "Hey Brian, this is Scott Settlemire!" "HOLY SHIT! Er, I mean Hi!!!" Haha, Scott was pretty cool and told me he was going to be bringing some vehicles to our show but he needed to ensure there would be shade. No problem, tons of trees. I remember trembling while I was on the phone because I was in such shock and excitement. I got off the phone and ran upstairs and talked a mile a minute telling my dad about the phone conversation. The next day, the day of the Meet & Greet, I couldn't believe my eyes when Scott arrived. I about fainted when a big orange car hauler pulled in. I'll never forget one of his comments, "You don't mind if we have a Cadillac too, do you?"
I couldn't believe it - Cadillac Sixteen, Camaro Coupe concept, AND the Camaro Convertible concept. Unbelievable day, and one of the days that I'll always remember. It can't be left out that on that day I proposed to Angie right infront of everyone at the M&G. Mary Sue (Old Fart) and her daughters were front row for the show... I proposed like 10 feet in front of them (Will post more shortly)
357ci LT1, cammed, stalled, and driven. 
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