For the Camaro’s 50th anniversary, Chevrolet didn’t settle for a badge and a paint stripe. The sixth-generation car arrived smaller, sharper-handling, and backed by a lineup running from a 275-horsepower turbo-four up to a 455-horsepower SS V8, with a new ZL1 added specifically for the occasion. Here’s what made the anniversary edition — and the platform underneath it — genuinely worth the celebration.
Posts Tagged: Chevrolet Camaro
This 1967 Camaro convertible trades its long-gone factory small-block for a 383 stroker, backed by a TH350 automatic, Hugger Orange paint, and enough chassis work to put real power down. Convertibles were already the rarer first-gen Camaro body style before anyone touched the drivetrain. Read on to find out what it takes to build a driver-focused first-gen right.
This 1970 Camaro’s split front bumper is one of the most misunderstood details in the entire pony car world, and this candy-painted, big-block example backs the look up with a full custom interior from Steve Holcomb’s shop. Read on to find out where the split bumper actually came from, and why it can’t tell you what’s really under the hood.
Chevrolet’s brand-new Camaro needed a real performance engine to compete with the Mustang in 1967, and the answer was a small block nobody had seen in a showroom before: the Turbo-Fire 350. Read on to find out why this debut engine mattered so much, and how it set the stage for everything the Camaro nameplate became.
This 2010 Camaro SS runs an LS3 pushed to 840 rear-wheel horsepower through a ProCharger centrifugal supercharger with a nitrous shot stacked on top, numbers that would embarrass most cars leaving a modern dealership floor. What actually separates this build from the dozens of boosted Camaros that grenade on their third pull is what happened to the internals long before the dyno ever spun up. Read on to find out what it took to make that kind of power survive.
This 1969 Camaro wears the Pro Street look in its purest form — a blower punching through the hood, tubbed rear wheels stuffed with wide slicks, and a 521-cubic-inch Hemi combination capable of mid-8-second quarter miles at close to 180 mph. Read on to find out what it actually takes to build one this aggressive.
By 1973 the original muscle car war was already over, and this Challenger-versus-Camaro pairing shows exactly how each company handled the retreat. Dodge dropped its six-cylinder but lost every big-block option in the process, while Chevrolet quietly kept a spread of 350 V8s alive. Read on to find out which nameplate blinked first — and why survivors from this unglamorous model year are finally getting collector attention.
Chevrolet actually builds two distinct 1LE track packages on the Camaro, a 335-horsepower V6 version and a 455-horsepower SS version, sharing the same Magnetic Ride Control suspension and Brembo brakes but differing underneath in ways most buyers never notice. Read on to find out how the V6 1LE holds its own against far pricier machinery on a demanding circuit like Willow Springs.
ScottieDTV’s teaser shows exactly one thing: an 850 horsepower second-gen Camaro backing out of Greening Auto Company, no burnout, no dyno pull, just an engine note loud enough that commenters said it “almost spilt my drink.” A full feature was promised for the following week, and the reaction here proves the wait is already killing fans. Watch the clip to hear what has second-gen Camaro owners this worked up.
Built by Bonnell’s Rod Shop out of Fairview, Pennsylvania, this 1968 Camaro restomod called the ‘Impulse’ has made multiple appearances on the SEMA show floor and was headed to auction through Mecum. Every bespoke detail was engineered to make the car look as fast as it actually is. Read on to find out what separates a build like this from the rest.
Don Yenko wanted 427 cubic inches in a Camaro and Chevrolet’s own corporate rules said he could not have it, so he found a way around the rulebook that eventually turned into a factory-sanctioned program. This Olympic Gold 1969 example represents the year the arrangement finally went legitimate, with the big block installed on the assembly line instead of in Yenko’s shop. Roughly two hundred were built. Read on for what actually changed between 1968 and 1969, because most people get it backwards.
Chevrolet built the 2014-2015 Camaro Z/28 as a purpose-built track weapon, dropping the Corvette Z06’s 505-hp LS7 into a chassis reworked with spool-valve dampers, a wider front track, and massive brakes. Semi-slick Pirelli Trofeo R tires — a production-car first — gave it grip few pony cars could match. GM originally planned thousands of units but hand-built just 1,801 at its Performance Build Center, making this naturally aspirated homage to the original Z/28 one of the rarest, most track-focused Camaros ever sold.
This 1968 Camaro is running an engine that didn’t exist when it left the factory — a ZZ4 crate small block bolted beneath dripping-wet custom paint and polished Torque Thrust wheels. Here’s why builders keep skipping the era-correct big block for a modern crate motor, what separates a resto-mod from a numbers-matching original, and why the first-generation Camaro remains the platform builders reach for most.
This 1968 Camaro pairs the SS-package 350 V8 – good for 295 horsepower and 380 lb-ft of torque – with the desirable M20 wide-ratio four-speed manual. It’s also a car built in the one model year that offered ten different engines and introduced federally mandated side marker lights along with the vent-window-deleting “Astro Ventilation” design, small details that separate a ’68 Camaro from the ’67 it followed.
1969 was the final and best-selling year of the original Camaro, with a mid-cycle restyle that gave the car its most aggressive first-generation look. Small-block, automatic-equipped cars like this one were far more common than the COPO 427 legends that dominate auction headlines — and they’re just as much a part of the model’s story.
