Hi all,

thought I'd throw in another mind boggling question here. I came thinking of it when I put on my Camaro 45 with silver dial and tachy scale this weekend. I do not wear it a lot but when I do I cannot keep my eyes of it and wear it more days in a row than Monaco, Autavia or Carrera. It is a watch with great shape - the wellknown copy of the Chevrolet Camaro headlamp shape of course- but also a perfectly simple dial, much alike the one as used in the manual Carrera's from the sixties. Also the size of the case is perfect: not too small, a bit bigger than Carrera and certainly not clunky on the wrist.

Studying the watch more closely -while enjoying a splendid Merlot wine- Sunday afternoon I started wondering why Heuer designed it this way and what inspired this. Could be that it was named after the Camaro only. However why should Heuer have done this? The Camaro was a nice car then, but certainly less succesful than its big competitor, the Ford Mustang.
Yes it was a famous racing car, but Heuer has no history of naming watches after car types. Race circuits yes, but no car brands/types.

No, that could not have been the only reason I thought. While I was starting my second glass and my wife served some delicious starters, I started wondering why I actually like the Camaro so much. Then all of a sudden it struck me that from a design point of view the Camaro looks like a real crossover between the Monaco and the manual Carrera. Look at it closely. The case is a fusion between round and square ( Carrera vs. Monaco). The size of the Camaro is right in between Carrera and Monaco. And finally the name. Compare the words Camaro, Monaco and Carrera. I guess we all see the similarities here and the crossovers. FYI, the Camaro was launched in 1969-1970, around the same time as the Monaco.

Now here's the discussion subject: can it be that the Camaro was a marketing project to serve the buyer public who had seen enough of the sixties Carreras ( maybe its sales numbers declined by then), but at the same time did not have the budget, or did not like the Monaco with it's avant-avant-garde look? And, maybe for that reason Heuer also looked for a name to reflect both the Carrera and Monaco characteristics? The end result "Camaro" of course was a perfect match and compromise: surely a link to the world of racing industry and at the same time a fusion of Carrera and Monaco.

Hope this is something to chew on for some of the OTD readers. Guess the only one who knows is Mr Jack Heuer himself.
Or are there others with inspirational views or opinions?

Whatever the conclusion, the Camaro still is an underestimated model in the pre-80ies model range.

Ron