Tagged with 'z28'

I was only 7 years old in 1975 when my uncle, Kevin Green, wheeled this car into the back corner of the garage. It wouldn’t see the light of day again until 2007. He had paid $400. I would later learn the car had been traded to the dealership where my uncle worked in exchange for a Datsun 280Z by its second owner, a friend of George Alderman (who was using the car for autocross racing). The first owner (identified by the Protect-O-Plate), Olive Hicks, has eluded us for years, despite our best efforts to find her. What we know for sure is that she purchased the car at Van’s Chevrolet in New Castle, DE, just a stone’s throw from my home today, and that the car had never really traveled more than a few miles from there.

The mid-sixties saw Camaro competing against Mustang for street and track bragging rights; while at the same time GM and Ford were competing for showroom sales. This era has been etched in history as the “Pony Car” Wars. This being a special Camaro issue; we thought it might be fun to run down the timeline for the Camaro. We’ll also be taking a look at things that were happening in the World of Camaro at that time. Along the way we’ll throw in a few weird or rare Camaro options, just for fun.

All love stories have a beginning, and this one is no different. As is the case with most ladies, she belonged to another man. And for sixteen years, George Hedrick of Lyles, TN made many offers to make her his, promising to restore and love only (not to sell). In early 2000, George’s friend (who had made the purchase from the original owner) passed away and the car went to auction where George was able to purchase her for the high bid of $1200.

The first thing George did after making her his was to properly store her, where she remained until 2009. During those 9 years, George finished his career as an independent contractor, the whole time never forgetting his love that waited. The plans were to restore her to original specs, but as the pictures show, many things changed– and as Elvis said, “I did it my way”. With a little help from friends Richard Dunn and Rod Lyonhurst, they restored a lot of metal and changed the original color from Deepwater Blue to 2008 Corvette Atomic Orange.

There was a bit of a surprise at the GM Renaissance Center today. As you can see from the photos, there were multiple custom Chevrolet Camaros surrounded by a film crew in GM’s circular showroom.

Just what is the occasion? Are they New York International Auto Show surprises? Chevy did catch everyone off guard with the Z/28 announcement last year, after all. Though they could just as well be movie cars from Transformers 4. But as it turns out, the Camaros seen here are neither official Chevrolet concepts, nor are they Autobots (or Decepticons).

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.

JOLIET, Ill., March 31, 2014 /PRNewswire-iReach/ -- As Chicagoland performance-car enthusiasts await the arrival of the track-ready 2015 Chevy Camaro Z/28 at Bill Jacobs Joliet in the coming months, they'll be able to catch a glimpse of the muscle car in action as paces the 2014 Indy 500 on May 25.

While the 2015 Chevy Camaro Z/28 won't be fully unleashed on the track, the man behind the wheel has proven to be more than capable of getting every ounce of performance from a car. Chevy selected three-time Indy 500 winner Dario Franchitti to drive the track-ready Camaro. Although Franchitti had his racing career cut short after suffering serious injuries from a crash last October, the automotive world is thrilled to see Franchitti back behind the wheel at the Indy 500.

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.

Chevrolet engineers rocketed the performance of the Zeta-based fifth-generation Camaro to new heights with the hard-core 2014 Camaro Z/28. They bench-marked the car against top tier supercars which cost thousands of dollars more, like the Nissan GT-R and Porsche 911. So far, the Z/28 has proved to be more than a worthy competitor on the racetrack, posting an extremely fast time on Germany’s infamous Nurburgring, but how does it work as a road car and is it faster around Barber Motorsports Park than a GT-R? We find out on this week’s episode of Motor Trend’s Head 2 Head.

Watch a pair of 2014 Z/28 Camaros run around Barber Motorsports Park (Video)

Ever wonder what it would be like to be given free reign to race a 500+ hp, tire-shredding, asphalt-devouring all-American muscle car around a professional racing circuit? Well, our friends from Car and Driver sure know how, and are allowing the rest of the world to partake in the breathtaking thrill-ride of a 2014 Camaro Z/28.

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.