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No matter where you look, the talk of the town remains that Ferrari 250 GTO that sold for $38 million at Pebble Beach. We love it too, but it’s not the only rare breed that’s crossing the block these days.
Up for sale at Mecum Auction’s Dallas is this remarkable 1967 Chevrolet Camaro, but not just any old Camaro, this was the first one delivered to the renowned Yenko Chevrolet dealership.
We purchased our 1986 IROC-Z Camaro used in March, 1987 at a VW/Mazda/Subaru dealership in College Park, Maryland. A close friend was the used car sales manager there. We were looking for a car, nothing specific in mind. We just knew we were tired of the econobox white Chevette my wife drove to work. Our friend let us know he had a car we might be interested in. When he drove it into our view with the T-tops removed and that red interior showing, we were sold. The original owner had traded it on a four-wheel drive Subaru because he was missing too much work due to snow. Janice drove it off the lot then she said, “This is my car!” So we left the Chevette as a trade and we were now Camaro owners.
The red car was a 1967 Chevy Camaro SS Convertible, and was owned by the now ex-executive producer of the show. In the early days of production, they drove the car. Now it's transported by trailer between the cities Guy visits, and it's only driven between restaurants in the same town. “Newer” episodes (8/11 to present) have been shot with a 1968 Camaro. The '67 was sold.
Guy is a car nut and owns nine at last count, including an '04 GMC Sierra pickup, a ’65 Cobra, a ’96 Impala Super Sport, an '07 Corvette, a '71 Chevelle, a '68 Pontiac Firebird, and a '76 CJ-5 Jeep. Other purchases include a 2008 Lamborghini Gallardo (infamously stolen in March 2011), a yellow Chevy 4500 monster semi truck (as seen in this RITZ Cracker commercial) and a black-on-yellow 2011 Chevy Camaro.
You may have heard about General Motors engineer Mark Stielow’s 1969 Camaro “Red Devil” before. It’s a fully custom Pro Touring Camaro packing a 7.0-liter LS7 under its hood which is garnished with the cylinder heads, valvetrain and supercharger from a Corvette ZR1. Underneath, it’s equipped with a 3.25:1 nine-inch axle, a limited-slip differential and a full Detroit Speed suspension system. He’s since sold the car, but back in 2012 when it was still around, him and Hot Rod magazine pitted it against a brand new Camaro ZL1 in a time-attack style race.
The Chevrolet models that came out of Don Yenko's shop were all spectacular. This '68 Camaro may be a little more so...
In the late 1960s, General Motors had a corporate edict which barred any engine larger than 400 cubic inches from finding its way under the hood of their recently released Ford Mustang fighter, the Camaro. To bypass this minor hurdle, the now famous Don Yenko ordered SS Camaros equipped with the L-78 Big Block engine to his father’s dealership and swapped it out with the 7.0-liter L-72 from the Corvette. The result was the now very rare and sought after Yenko Camaro. Only 64 Yenko’s were built in 1968, one of which will cross the auction block at Mecum’s Original Spring Classic auction next month.
If you're Jeremy Clarkson or anyone involved with one of the Cannonball Run movies, driving a car into a swimming pool is hilarious. If you're not, it really isn't.
Anyone looking to go for a swim at a certain Harris County, Texas, community pool was--to say the least--inconvenienced when a brand-new 2014 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 was driven into it. This moment of schadenfreude is brought to you by txGarage.
We're in a Barber Motorsports Park garage in Birmingham, Ala., on a brisk morning with pro race-car driver Andy Pilgrim -- along with the Chevrolet Camaro Z/28 and Porsche 911 GT3, the latest, road course-focused street cars for 2014. Cadillac Racing pays Pilgrim to pilot a CTS-V coupe in the Pirelli World Challenge series, but today he is our hired gun to give us top-level feedback around the challenging 2.38-mile circuit.
Pilgrim's résumé boasts wins at the 12 Hours of Sebring, Petit Le Mans and the Rolex 24 at Daytona, in addition to numerous Le Mans podium finishes. And while he has bagged five professional sports-car championships, it's his articulate, detailed feedback about a car's behavior at the limit that's more valuable to us on this day.
Before 1970, General Motors had an edict that restricted cubic inches depending on the bodystyle. Chevrolet’s compact (Chevy II/Nova), mid-size (Chevelle), and pony car (Camaro) could not have anything larger than a 396, while full-size cars and the Corvette could get the 427. Meanwhile, across town at Chrysler and Ford, they were running amuck with 7-Liter monsters like the 426 Hemi and Boss 429.
Knowing that credibility was built on the street as much as on the racetrack (which, by the way, was never sanctioned by General Motors due to a racing ban that began in 1963), the folks at Chevrolet created a way to build a few Chevelles and Camaros with 427s. Instead of offering them as Regular Production Orders (RPO), they were built through the Central Office Production Order (COPO) channel. This channel was normally used for fleet orders like for the phone company, so they were equipped to handle things that were not quite regular production. A little over 300 COPO Chevelles and an estimated 1,000 COPO Camaros were built with the L72 427, which was rated at 425 horsepower.
The 2014 Camaro Z/28 is a lot more than a big engine in a Camaro—it’s a repurposed performance machine with numerous tweaks to call its own. This “Camaro Z06″ (if you will) has a number of aerodynamic mods that help make the it such a stellar vehicle on the track, so Car and Driver interviewed Program Engineering Manager Mark Stielow to discuss how the Z/28′s aerodynamics improve the breed and how it compares with another Camaro with track aspirations, the 1LE.
The new 2014 Camaro Z/28 is so fast, it outran its own tires. Here's how Chevy fixed it.
It's well known that the Chevy Camaro Z/28 has the widest front tires of any production car. At 305 mm wide, those tires produce tremendous grip--especially since they're Pirelli P Zero Trofeo Rs. In fact, they make so much grip, the Z/28 was spinning the tire around the wheel under braking--the Z/28 was, in effect, outrunning its tires, or at least their ability to grip the wheels.
