Chevy Camaro - Bumblebee
As expected, GM's announced to dealers a limited Chevy Camaro Bumblebee Edition will be available to order beginning June 1st. Production will run from June 24th through December. Camaro5 tells us this special Transformers-badging will be on wheel centers, sill plates and embroidered console lid. The $995 appearance package can be applied to LT (V6) and SS-trim Camaros in Rally Yellow with or without the optional RS package.
If you were hoping for more, such as the Z/28 fascia and hood, the storm drain-sized exhaust outlets used on Bumblebee in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, or, say, an actual robot mode, you're outta luck. There are no performance upgrades, either -- you'll simply have to make do with the 304, 400, or 426 horsepower that comes standard, depending on which base config you select. If you desperately want your own Bumblebee but are turned off by the whole Transformers brand-mania thing, you can still do the obvious thing and order up a regular Rally Yellow car and simply add plain black rally stripes for $470. We'd do that. Check out the official press release after the jump.
will include:
- Autobot insignia fender badges and wheel caps;
- An embroidered Autobot insignia on the center console;
- Gloss-black rally stripes with Transformers logos;
- Transformers-logo doorsill plates.
Driving Bumblebee
After lots of assurances that it wouldn't hurt their movie star except burn some rubber off the rear tires � and despite the agonizing trepidation of both the studio and General Motors � there we were cruising around Howard Hughes' old digs and shooting photos, trying to find the sweet spot where the light would perfectly catch the blue-gray haze.
From afar the Bumblebee Camaro is simply gorgeous; the shape that mesmerized on the show stands looks even better in sunlight. Up close, this movie prop is even more impressive, despite plenty of fakery including plastic door handles that are supposed to look like metal and plexiglass side windows that don't roll down. This isn't some cheap splash of fiberglass done up by amateurs, but rather Corvette-quality resin and mat. Every piece of the body is perfectly formed, the panels fit to each other with precision and the paint is thick and luminous. It's not a production car, but it could easily pass for one.
The car starts instantly and falls easily into a familiar, throaty idle. The four-speed automatic transmission's shift lever has been modified and it works fine. Get the car rolling and there's some road noise from the big tires since there's little sound-deadening material aboard, but there are only a few creaks around where the body is bonded to the frame. The steering feels fine, the brakes seem to work fine and there was no real chance to find out how the suspension worked.
This is a miracle, because most movie cars are utter crap, clapped-out junkers barely mobile enough to roll across the movie screen and blow up spectacularly. They're incredibly lethal to drive, a mix of unpredictable dynamics and ongoing electrical fires. This Bumblebee, on the other hand, looks just about perfect and seems sweet-natured enough to do the morning commute. And when Justin Mann from the Transformers picture-car department got in it to do the burnout, it fried its tires like a seasoned street racer.
Chevy Bumblebee Gallery
Chevy Camaro Bumblebee Spoiler