There's little question that the current, sixth-generation Chevy Camaro is dynamically superior in every way to the fifth-gen model it replaced upon its debut in 2015. Its styling, however, has left some scratching their heads. So does its designer have any regrets about the direction he and his team took with the latest Bowtie-brand pony car?

"Nope." That's what Tom Peters, the head exterior designer of the sixth-gen Camaro, had to say to Muscle Cars & Trucks on the subject. That's pretty much the long and short of it, whatever the critics say.

"We had the same team working on Camaro and C7 [Corvette]," said Peters. "We wanted to add more sculpture, more flavor, and more unique shape" to the sixth-gen Camaro.

He and his team certainly did that, but critics say it came at the expense of the fifth-gen model's purity of design. That was, after all, the model that brought the Camaro back to market after nearly a decade's absence, with arguably bolder lines than the sixth-gen version that's followed. And Chevy keeps tweaking the design in subsequent model years to keep the pony car looking its best.

The sales figures would appear to differ with Peters' take on it, though. Chevy sold about 80,000 Camaros in the US each year over the course of the fifth-gen model's revival, but sales have been falling since the new version arrived – to less than 72k in 2016, under 68k in 2017, and just over 50k last year. Granted that the vehicle's design may play only a part in that, but for a model that trades on its road presence, it's surely a big part – and one that's hard to ignore, especially considering the new model's aforementioned dynamic superiority.