A Retro Car Helps Reset GM

GAITHERSBURG, Md. (WUSA) -- GM's hottest car right now looks just like one of those honkin' gas guzzlers from the 1970's.

But the muscle car's been transformed for the new millennium, and the new Chevy Camaro is screaming off the lot.

From a starring role in Transformers to a starring role in the transformation of GM, the Camaro is smoking.

"At an old age, I bought a new one, cause I couldn't afford them when they were old," says Criswell Auto marketing director Neil Kopit.

On lots bulging with unsold cars, it's tough to even find a Camaro. Buyers put down deposits on 14,000 of them before a single one was built. And some dealers are selling them for $5,000 over MSRP.

"It reminds me of the '69 Z28," says Joe Iosue of Gaithersburg, who is hoping to trade in his Ford Escape for a Camaro -- and get credit under the government's new cash for clunkers program.

"When people get a call that their car is in, it's not a day, it's hours before they're down to the store ready to drive it home. You just see the grin on their faces as they drive away," says Kopit.

In the heyday of mullet haircuts and Hot Shoppes, GM sold nearly 300,000 pony cars a year. They don't expect to match that with the new Camaro, but they do hope it will bring more people into the showroom.

So what strange alchemy has GM thinking a model first built in 66, and discontinued in 2002, can help resurrect the company from bankruptcy in 2009?

This is not your father's Camaro. The V-6 gets 29 mpg on the highway... although fans say the V-8's the real muscle car.

"You can't legislate what everybody has to drive, or we'll get those great Russian cars everybody got 30-years-ago," says Kopit.

Let the Russians drive Ladas. America loves the Camaro.

The auto critics seem to like the Camaro, but they do complain about blind spots, and a cramped back seat.