1971 Chevrolet Camaro Introduction

The 1971 Camaro received only minor appearance changed from its 1970 counterpart. Inside, new high-back Strato bucket seats with built-in headrests replaced the 1970-only low-back seats with adjustable headrests. The biggest changes came under the hood due to a GM-corporate mandate that all engines be designed to run on lower-octane regular leaded, low-lead or unleaded gasoline, necessitating reductions in compression ratios and horsepower ratings. The 250-6, 307-V8 and two-barrel version of the 350 V8 were virtually unchanged as they were low-compression regular-fuel engines in 1970 and previous years, while the LT-1 350 V8 used in the Z/28 dropped from 360 to 330 horsepower due to compression ratio decline from 11.0 to 1 to 9.0 to 1, and the big 396/402 cubic-inch V8 dropped from 350 to 300 horsepower due to compression ratio drop from 10.25 to 1 to 8.5 to 1.

Production and sales dropped due to a 67-day corporate-wide strike at GM that coincided with the introduction of the 1971 models in late September, 1970, along with a continued declining interest in the ponycar market fueled by skyrocketing insurance rates for high-performance cars. Rumors of the possible cancellation of the Camaro after 1972 began to surface and were nearly confirmed a year later when another worker's strike hit the assembly plant at Norwood, Ohio, which was the only plant building Camaros and Pontiac Firebirds. Camaro and Firebird production had been discontinued at the Van Nuys, California plant in 1970 in favor of Chevy Novas.

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