CLICK HERE FOR MORE DETAILS
Baldwin-Motion Snags
Oscar at SEMA!
The prototype
1969 540 Camaro SuperCoupe, shown for the first time at the 2005 SEMA
Show, wins GM’s top Design Award. At a special awards breakfast,
Kip Wasenko, Director Of Design, Special Vehicles, General Motors, presented
the highly-coveted, Third Annual ‘Best GM Vehicle’ Design
Award to the MOTION Team for its 700-hp, two-seat Camaro, handcrafted
by Phil Somers at Time Machines.
“In
a crowded field of restyled GM products at SEMA this year, the Baldwin-Motion
540 Camaro SuperCoupe, penned by Kris Horton working with MOTION, LLC
CEO, Larry Jaworske and Joel ‘Mr. Motion’ Rosen, and literally
stole the Show,” said Kip Wasenko.
Citing the
SuperCoupe’s “extraordinary design, execution, attention
to detail and flawless fit and finish” he presented the Design
Award to MOTION, LLC President, Joel Ehrenpreis and the Team on behalf
of General Motors.
“During
the Supercar Sixties and Seventies, Joel Rosen and Marty Schorr’s
original Baldwin-Motion big-block Camaros and Corvettes contributed
to the mystique of the brands. I was a big Motion fan then and I’m
still a big fan,” added Wasenko.
Read the
article featured on Money.CNN.com
Camaro reborn:
700-horsepower, $427,000
Reborn muscle-car era speed shop building ultra-high-performance Camaros
from scratch.
November 11, 2005: 11:39 AM EST
By Peter Valdes-Dapena, CNN/Money staff writer
LAS VEGAS (CNN/Money) - If you missed your opportunity to buy a brand-new
Chevrolet Camaro before General Motors stopped making them in 2002,
here's your chance. You'd better have some serious cash, though. The
reincarnation of a muscle-car era team that specialized in making high-performance
Chevrolets has brought the reincarnation of the Camaro itself. This
time, they're making their own Camaros from scratch with bodies designed
with the help of a 22-year-old California car artist.
The look of the new Baldwin-Motion 540 Camaro SuperCoupe calls to mind
the 1969 Camaro, but this is a bigger, broader two-seat monster. The
SuperCoupe is powered by a 700-horsepower V-8 engine. In a nod to the
good old days, the company lists the engine's displacement as 540 cubic
inches. That's about 8.9 liters for those of you too young to remember
when engine displacement was measured in cubic inches. Even the car's
price is a nod to those old English-unit days: $427,000.
Camaros
with General Motors' 427-cubic-inch engine were the basis for some of
the most famous cars created by the original Baldwin-Motion Performance
Group. That company was formed when Motion Performance, a Brooklyn,
NY, speed shop, moved their operations to the suburban town of Baldwin,
NY. There, in 1966, they partnered with a local Chevy dealership to
sell custom performance upgrades. Their cars, mostly high-horsepower
Corvettes, Camaros and Chevelles, became some of the most prized muscle
cars of the era.
Joel Rosen and Martyn Schorr were largely responsible for creating the
original Baldwin-Motion. Rosen was the mechanic, Schorr was responsible
for public relations, advertising and marketing. The pair started their
new company, now based in Florida, last summer along with several business
partners.
This time, the cars are being created without factory-built Camaros
to base them on. The new cars' all-steel bodies will be built by Time
Machines, a Florida company specializing in body work for classic muscle
cars. The success legendary performance tuner Carroll Shelby has had
with a line of faithfully recreated Shelby muscle cars -- not to mention
an upcoming Shelby version of the new Ford Mustang -- had something
to do with inspiring this venture, said Lawrence Jaworske, Motion's
chief executive officer. "Why should Carroll get to have all the
fun?" he said.
Designer Kris Horton worked with Rosen to pen the prototype car. Horton
came to the attention of the Baldwin-Motion team because of a sketch
he did for Popular Hot-Rodding magazine in the summer of 2003. That
computer sketch, which was distributed widely on the Internet, illustrated
what a Chevrolet Camaro might look like if General Motors were to produce
the car again. The Baldwin-Motion SuperCoupe's body, while resembling
a 1969 Camaro in the front grill, rear and overall shape, actually shares
no sheet-metal or dimensions with that car.
Each SuperCoupe will be hand-made according to the customer's desires,
said Lawrence Jaworske, Motion's chief executive officer. That 700-horsepower
engine isn't supercharged, for example. If you really want, it could
be. The company is proud of the fact that its supercars will be totally
"streetable," said Jaworske. In other words, the cars are
designed to be safely and legally driven on public roads by non-professional
drivers. Motion will not do anything to jeopardize the car's road-ready
nature, said Jaworske. "We want to be responsible about what we're
doing," he said. The company will tell buyers to allow a year for
their cars to be completed. The new Motion Camaro will also bring back
"the guarantee" that went with the original cars. Those cars
were guaranteed to be able to run a quarter mile from a dead stop in
11.5 seconds at a top speed of 120 miles per hour. The new guarantee
has been tightened to 10 seconds, said Jaworske.
For those with a little less to spend, the company is making available
12 Baldwin-Motion SS-427 and Phase III Camaros starting at $169,000
each, said Jaworske. Those cars, Jaworske said, will more closely resemble
original 1969 Camaros and will use some original body parts. While he's
not exactly sure who the "typical buyer" for a $400,000 to
$500,000 700-horsepower Camaro might be, Schorr pointed to the current
market in highly collectible muscle cars, including classic Baldwin
Motion Camaros from the 1960s and '70s. While not common, extremely
rare muscle cars in pristine condition can sell for prices well into
six figures.
The prototype Motion SuperCoupe was sold at the Barrett-Jackson collectible
car auction in Scottsdale, Ariz. in January. That event, which is
broadcast live on cable television, generally brings some of the highest
prices paid for collectible muscle cars. The car sold to Ron Pratte,
Chandler, AZ, for $486,000 - including buyer's premium
