What Is a Catfish Camaro? Unpopular Design at the Time, Cool Now

The 1998-to-2002 Chevy Camaro has a nickname. The moniker “catfish” has been applied to these specific model years of fourth-generation Chevy Camaros for a while now, and its use is creeping into the hot rod vernacular with increasing frequency. This five-year run of the Camaro is easy to spot on the street with its fishlike, gape-mouthed lower front fascia.

The styling of the catfish Camaro’s grille was questionable in 1998 when it came out, but it quickly grew on fans of the Chevy F-body. Certainly, nobody was complaining about the big boost of power under the hood of Z/28 and SS models that wore the catfish grille,

so why start calling it names this late in the game? Chalk it up to an entire generation of young hot-rodders—millennials—taking the reins of a now 25-year-old fleet and making it their own!