When I was growing up in a small town in Massachusetts, there were no sports cars. Nobody had seen a Ferrari. Occasionally a Corvette might come through town, but it was the type of thing where we’d hang around the local McDonald’s or Dairy Queen until about 11pm. Then you’d get home and somebody would call you and say, “Oh you should have stayed another 15 minutes, a Corvette went by!” And you’d be like, “Nnooo! I missed it!” Because you didn’t see those type of cars.

At that time in our town the workers would drive a Galaxie, the middle manager would drive the Ford Galaxie 500, and the boss would drive the Ford Galaxie 500 XL. And that was sort of the range of cars that you had. Almost everybody had a four-door or a station wagon. If a guy had a two-door he was probably a bachelor. You’d see an occasional MG, maybe a few oddball English sports cars but for the most part that was it.

That all changed when the Ford Mustang came out on April 17 1964. That was a real American version of a sports car. It was followed by the Chevy Camaro and the Pontiac Firebird. These had such an impact because they were reasonably practical cars that middle-class people could buy.

At the time, and this shows you how provincial Boston was, there was a bestselling book called Sex and the Single Girl by Helen Gurley Brown. And Mustang had an ad — they were trying to sell six-cylinder Mustangs to secretaries — and the ad was “Six and the Single Girl”. The Boston newspapers wouldn’t publish it because they thought it was too racy.

These were the high-performance cars of my youth because a Ferrari or a Lamborghini were cars you’d see only in magazines. But you could come close to the performance with the Camaro or the Mustang. There’s a whole range of cars that have a connection with people of my generation; they raced them, they made love in them, they got married in them.

The Camaro was always a little bit more sophisticated than the Mustang. The Mustang came out first so the Camaro had to be a little better. They had the IROC and Z28 versions, plus the Camaro had the Corvette thing to play on a little bit. It was like the little brother to the Corvette so consequently you could get a Camaro with a Corvette engine in it.

With these cars out, you had to decide which camp you belonged to. It was along the lines of mods and rockers; there were Mustang guys and there were Chevy guys, and when you pulled into the local Dairy Queen or the drive-in burger place, the Ford guys were on one side and the Chevy guys on the other. Occasionally a Camaro guy would have sex with a Mustang girl and it was Romeo and Juliet again!

Now, with the state of the American car market, I think just the fact that you’re an American car guy is good enough. I was a Ford guy but I like GM because it’s made more of a commitment to performance. There are a lot more engineers in the company now, a lot more car guys. In the early days, 20 years ago, the financial part was sound but the product was shaky. Now the product is extremely sound, but the financial part is shaky. Which, being a car guy, is better for me. I see interesting engines, interesting performance options. I’ve seen Cadillac turn itself around from the frumpy era when the average Cadillac buyer was 62, to the young guys who like the Escalade and the rappers who like all the bling-bling stuff. They’ve also come out with the new six-speed CTV. And of course there is the new Camaro concept, which I’m driving today for the first time.

Muscle cars are back in, it seems. Ford has made the Mustang again and Dodge has built a new Challenger. Things repeat themselves. I think it’s a demographic. Guys in my age group remember those cars, couldn’t afford them when they were new, and now suddenly, hey!

What makes it work for the car companies is that they are selling us the dream cars of your youth. I’m lucky. I’ve got a 1970 Hemi Challenger and it’s got a big 426 engine and it gets, like, 9mpg. It makes a lot of noise but it’s not that fast. A hot hatch will blow it off. It looks good but then so does putting socks down your pants: fine until you have to perform. Now, though, you can buy a Hemi that is much faster than the original was. This is what American car companies do best.

It’s not just old guys who like muscle cars. I think if you’re a 20-year-old guy these machines are original. I mean, does the new Camaro look like the original? New and old — there are little cues. Like the way Prince William looks like Princess Diana; you can see the resemblance. It’s about the same size but I can’t think of anything that’s really retro about it.

The ideal shape for a car, aerodynamically, is a jelly bean. Like the Prius. The Prius is the ideal shape for a car but it doesn’t appeal to the eye. Cars in the 1960s, aesthetically, had an eye appeal that people liked. It’s like redesigning a woman: we’re going to put the buttocks here and the breasts over here. Well it’s very nice but I kind of like the original. It works for me.

I think the Camaro looks extremely masculine. It looks modern instead of rounded; it’s a bit more creased than sharp-edged. I don’t really think it’s retro at all. What you’re looking at there is the design element of computers v forming something by hand. When you form something by hand, there tends to be a more rounded shape to it. You see very few creases and sharp edges on cars that were designed in the 1950s, because they were moulded by hand.

When this Camaro goes into production, which I am sure it will, I don’t think they’ll change it a whole lot. I think the roof will probably be a little bit higher, I think the sides and the tail and front end will stay the same. I think they’ll probably just make the windscreen area a bit higher.

This concept version does not drive properly so it is hard to say how it performs and handles. It sounds good. It has a proper V8; it has a nice rumble to it. Cars should make you smile. When you’re a middle-aged guy and you’re sitting in a Camaro and you see teenage girls give you the thumbs up, well there’s your price-breaker right there. Sold.

It is designed for performance. It has independent suspension, it’s got a six-speed and antilock brakes. There is no hint that this will be anything but a performance machine.

I think it will be very successful. I think they’d do 120,000 units in the first year. What GM needs to do is build cars that people want. This is a classic example of that. I see even the Z06 Corvette getting grudging respect from Europeans. The key to American products has always been value for the dollar.

When I was a teenager, people would come from England and we’d go out in my dad’s giant Galaxie, with 345bhp and a 428 7 litre V8, and the English kids would go, “How much did this car cost? The same as an MG?” They couldn’t believe how much car you got for your money. So I think if you can get Corvette performance at a Camaro price, people will flock to it.

It’s sort of the American dream: if you save your money and you work hard, you can get one of these. A Ferrari or Lamborghini — those are always going to be out of reach. I think that’s the key with the Mustang, the Camaro or any of the cars. Right now the barrier would be $30,000 — once you get over that, if you really want it badly you might spring for $33,000 but that’s the ball park the car makers need to aim for.

If I still lived in my home town, this would be the car I would want. It’s a bit like the Cayman. It’s for the guy who can’t quite make it to the 911. That’s what this is: I think the Camaro is the Cayman to the Corvette. You can justify it to the wife — look honey, there’s two seats in the back. The kids can sit back there. But what clinches it is that it’s a car that people will lust after.

I might get one. I’ve got the Z06 Corvette already. I don’t need four seats. In fact I don’t need the extra seat on the Corvette. It is usually only me in it. But logic is not always a factor when you want a muscle car.



*Figures are approximate and based on GM predictions for the production version