There’s people with some huge ambitions over at Chevrolet, at least those involved at the product level with their competitor to the Ford Mustang and Dodge Challenger. While many may praise the Camaro as being the most well-rounded of all three big name modern American muscle cars, the team behind it feel that the limit is nowhere near reached.
Currently, the most hardcore version of the sixth-generation Camaro you can buy is the ZL1 1LE, equipped with a fire-breathing 6.2-litre supercharged V8, plenty of aero, and a bunch of weight shaved off. The sum of this effort was an achievement rare to cars from the US, especially ones off the factory floor: a truly impressive time around the Nurburgring of 7:16.
Al Oppenheiser, the car’s chief engineer, isn’t content. He sees far more potential in the Camaro yet to be unlocked, so much so that he reckons the car, if developed properly, is capable of a scarcely believable lap time below the 7 minute mark which, should it be achieved, would be the first front-engine production car to do it.
Now, it’s hard to firmly say that’s what he wants from the Camaro team or is it any concrete base to intimate it to any possible larger efforts underway toward achieving that, but at least we know its foremost in the Camaro boss’ mind, according to an exchange he had recently with Hagerty. Shaving a few tenths of a lap time is one thing, and also quite difficult, but making up a full 16 seconds sounds nearly impossible while retaining road-legal status.
Figuring a solution past this hurdle might mean that Chevrolet will have to dabble in active aerodynamics, advanced lightweight materials, and perhaps even some kind new kind powertrain capable of electric torque fill for a fighting chance to reach the level of performance only recently reached by hypercars from McLaren, Porsche, and more recently with the Lamborghini Huracan Performante.
Even with those lofty goals, the Camaro might face some stiff competition merely from within its family as the recently revealed Corvette ZR1 could also seek a similarly fast time around the Green Hell, packing Chevrolet’s most powerful production V8 and a host of dynamic upgrades.
While musing on that prospect, Oppenheiser also touched on matter of competing with the Challenger Demon. Technically, a drag pack similar to the treatment that Dodge applied to the Challenger Hellcat could be a relatively simple upgrade to the Camaro ZL1. Similarly, both Dodge product and the forthcoming Mustang GT500 will quickly leave the Camaro on the wrong side of 700 horsepower (522kW), meaning that a facelift of the pack-leading Chevy could see power rise to match.
