Through six generations and nearly a half-century of production, the Chevrolet Camaro remains one of America’s most popular sporty cars. Here are five fabulous Camaro prototypes that never made it to the showrooms. 

Now in production for 49 years (as of this writing) and counting, the Chevrolet Camaro has made a lasting impression on the American automotive scene. As GM designers and engineers constantly adapted and evolved the Camaro to meet changing times, some interesting Camaro experiments have arisen—including even station wagon and pickup versions, it seems. Here’s a quick look back at some intriguing Camaros that were never produced.

A Camaro El Camino? While it’s doubtful there was ever any production intent, Chevrolet created this sporty hauler named the Caribe for the 1968 car show circuit, complete with pickup bed where the trunk and rear seat once resided. The bow-tie division built a number of imaginative show cars based on the first-generation ’67-’69 Camaro convertible, including the Cherokee pace car and the wood-paneled Waikiki surf buggy.

The 1989 Camaro IROC-Z Concept, also known as the California Camaro, was created by GM’s Advanced Concepts Center (ACC) in Newbury, California. The futuristic project bore some interesting visual similarities to the Pontiac Banshee IV prototype, and also foreshadowed a number of styling features on the fourth-generation Camaro introduced in 1993.

For the second-generation Camaro introduced in model year 1970, Styling VP Bill Mitchell’s design team experimented with a number of different looks, including this one with an elegant formal roof. As we know now, of course, a sleek fastback roofline was selected for the production version, which was built through 1981.

For the 1970 model year, the GM styling studios also took a serious look at station wagon variants of the corporate F-body in both Camaro and Firebird flavors. The Chevrolet version, called the Camaro K  (for Kammback), made it to the fiberglass mockup phase as shown here. The rear cargo compartment volume doesn’t appear to be terribly generous.

Known internally at GM as XP-836, Chevrolet’s answer to the Ford Mustang is shown here in clay model form in November of 1964. While there are significant differences between this proposal and the eventual production car, the essence of the Camaro can clearly be seen.

Chevrolet considered a number of names for its new pony car—this studio model is badged as a Panther, while the name Chaparral (after Jim Hall’s innovative Chevy-powered sports cars, presumably) was also tried out. But on June 28, 1966, Chevrolet general manager Pete Estes cleared up the matter for good. Chevy’s new sports coupe, he informed 200 members of the automotive press, would be called the Camaro.