It’s a curious truth of automotive
engineering that, in general, the
lower the volume target for a new
vehicle, the more effort is invested
in perfecting it. Engineers seem to
sweat the nuances of a Ferrari far
more than they do those of a Fiat.
The same goes for performance
models of mass-produced
vehicles. With the tedious stuff
already taken care of—say, making
the car come together as easily as
a SnapTite model on the assembly
line—the performance guys are
free to spend months toying with
bushing stiffness. Unburdened by
trivialities such as radio reception
or defroster performance, the
go-fast department finds time to
lap a track for 24 hours.
Such is the back story of the Chevrolet Camaro ZL1. Devel-
opment engineers fussed over seven iterations of their custom-
ized Goodyear Eagle F1 Supercar 3 tires (three iterations are
typical in vehicle development). They spent more than a year
calibrating the 10 -speed automatic transmission. And they
made six separate trips to the Nürburgring in order to fine-tune
the car, with the eventual payoff being a 7:29.60 lap, almost 12
seconds faster than its predecessor.
That exhaustive development was applied to some of the
most astonishing hardware extant. Its magnetorheological
dampers take their cues from sensors that read the road 1000
times per second; an electronically controlled limited-slip dif-
ferential shuffles torque between the rear wheels with computer
precision; and a wet-sump variant of the LT4 supercharged 6.2-
liter V-8 delivers incredible thrust. Imagine a Dodge Challenger
SRT Hellcat that can corner, a Ford Mustang Shelby GT350 with
an additional 124 horsepower, and a BMW M4 with even better
steering. The Camaro ZL1 is all of these things and more.
The ZL1’s parts list is familiar. Many will think of this car as
a Corvette Z06 with four seats, its base price of $63,435 equat-
ing to a $17,010 discount over the super-Vette. But the ZL1 is not
exactly a Z06, even if bits of it certainly are shared. The ZL1’s
own contribution to Chev y’s arsenal of performance parts is its
new 10 -speed automatic transmission [see “Explained”]. The
standard six-speed manual gearbox, with a well-weighted
shifter and clutch pedal, is a much better choice for those who
want to choose their own gears, but the auto is a ’box of magic.
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