The pony car wars are still in full force and the Chevrolet Camaro is on the forefront of every battle. The seasoned muscle car boasts a muscular exterior with sleek lines and a powerful engine mounted behind that familiar face.
The rear-wheel drive Chevrolet Camaro is powered by a 3.6L V6 engine delivering 304hp and 273 lb-ft of torque, but the better choice is found in the 6.2L V8 engine cranking out 400/426hp and 410/420lb-ft of torque. These engines are mated to either a six-speed manual or automatic transmission.
One of the most popular cars to attend SEMA last year was the Chevrolet Camaro thanks to countless tuning companies that brought their iteration of the popular Chevrolet muscle car to the world’s biggest auto aftermarket show.
The Camaro’s mass showing last year earned it the title of being the "hottest car" of the event and from the looks of things, it appears that the Camaro will be back in force this year, ready to defend its crown.
One of the first to reveal their plans of bringing a Camaro to SEMA comes from Whiteside Customs, Inc, a Texas-based aftermarket tuning company that will finally present their long-awaited program for the Chevy muscle car. We say ’long-awaited’ because the whole program is two years in the making, giving Whiteside Customs plenty of time to not only prepare to show the car off at SEMA, but to also ready it to take down the Nissan GT-R. After all those months of laborious work, the folks over at Whiteside Customs are now finally ready to reveal their Camaro program.
Full details behind the project are still being kept under wraps, although Mike White of Whiteside Customs did say that the Camaro will carry in excess of 500 horsepower, courtesy of a twin-turbo kit from RX Performance. Other tidbits about the project that have been revealed include a new exhaust system from ARK Performance, a custom suede steering wheel from Ace Custom Steering, and a custom suede interior from Katzkin Leather, among other things.
While it appears that there’s more to this car than meets the eye, the good news is that we won’t have to wait long to find out what it is. SEMA’s coming next week, and for Whiteside Customs, that two-year wait is about to end.
The visual treat that are art cars come out of the woodwork a lot in the past but very few of those we’ve seen have been drawn on with Sharpies.
Such is the case with this silver Chevrolet Camaro. The work of Maryland-based professional pinstriper - apparently, there’s a profession for that - Chris Dunlop, a rather mindless Camaro was turned into a tasty and elaborate Sharpie-drawn work of art, replacing the traditional pinstripes found on the muscle car.
The detail, as you can see, is as intricate as a porcelain vase. The two sides of the design are as intricate as it can get, making the whole process a lot trickier to pull of. Add that to the fact that well over ten Sharpies were used in the project with a number of layers of clearcoat added in to make sure the ink becomes permanent when it dries. So yeah, you can imagine just how tedious the work is in accomplishing this.
But Dunlop is no ordinary artist; he knows his way around cars and how to use them as his personal canvas. In fact, this Camaro project is his fourth foray in decorating cars so he’s hardly a newbie when it comes to this. And as the age-old eye test will tell you, the finished product is a visual eye candy.
All in a days work for Chris Dunlop.
President of GM North America, Mark Reuss recently stopped by Jay Leno’s Garage with a very special car in tow: a 2012Chevrolet Camaro ZL1. But this wasn’t just any ordinary ZL1; this was the same model that blitzed the Nurburgring only a few days ago with an impressive lap time of 7:41:27. Shortly after its dalliance with the ’Ring, the ZL1 was flown all the way to Hollywood, California for a date with no less than Jay Leno.
The ZL1 is powered by an LSA 6.2-liter supercharged V8 engine that delivers an impressive 580 HP at 6,000 rpm and 556 lb/ft of torque at 4,200 rpm. The engine is connected to a Tremec TR6060 six-speed manual transmission that allows the ZL1 to sprint from 0 to 60 mph in just 2.9 seconds.
Enjoy the video and see what Jay Leno himself has to say about the Camaro ZL1. You’ll need to be patient though because the first three minutes explains the car’s launch control system. But rest assured, Camaro fans, the video is well worth checking out!
The Chevrolet Camaro is so popular that, despite its all-American roots, the muscle car still generates tremendous amounts of interests from tuning companies a continent away.
Geiger Cars is a German-based tuning company of American cars so it was only obvious that they would come out with a ridiculous program for the Camaro Convertible.
And boy, did they ever.
On mere aesthetics alone, the Camaro Convertible looks about as hot as any aftermarket Camaro we’ve seen in a while. It’s dressed in a Black and Orange paint scheme, complete with with a new body kit consisting of a new chin spoiler, a rear diffuser, a boot lid wing, new side skirts, and a set of 22" wheels that, for lack of a better term, are bursting in orange. On top of that, Geiger also added a new adjustable suspension system and a new sports exhaust system to keep the car on its edge.
Despite the rather audacious look of the car, the performance upgrade under its hood is what makes this program a must-have for Camaro owners. Using the same 6.2-liter V8 engine from the muscle car, Geiger Cars added a supercharger system, ratcheting up the car’s output from 430 horsepower and 420 lb/ft of torque all the way up to 568 horsepower and 574 lb/ft of torque.
The whole program looks fantastic from top to bottom. That’s why you’ll need to pay premium prices - €85,000 ($116,000) - for the privilege of owning one.
A lot of cars are being auctioned off these days with the intention of having the proceeds sent to various charities, that much we know. More often than not, these cars are of the special edition variety with the hope that their ’uniqueness’ would attract more bids than just a standard model.
And when you look at this West Coast Customs-tuned Chevrolet Camaro Convertible, ’unique’ is probably too light a word to describe it.
A few days ago, the UCLA Health System announced that a Camaro Convertible was auctioned off for $366,000 at the Mecum Auto Auction in Dallas, Texas. While the Camaro Convertible doesn’t appear to have any performance modifications attached, the people over at West Coast Customs, led by Ryan Friedlinghaus, made sure that the Camaro Convertible would look about as different as any other Camaro in the world.
The special, one-off muscle car was dressed up in a full camouflage motif, representing all the branches of the US military. The rather steep price of $366,000 came as the winning bid of auction host Ben Mecum, who was pleased to raise that much money for charity.
Proceeds from the sale of the one-off Camaro will go to Operation Mend, a joint tie-up between the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, and the Veterans Affairs–Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System. This organization provides specialized medical care to U.S. military personnel who have been wounded and severely disfigured in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Check out the $366,000 camouflaged Chevrolet Camaro Convertible and tell us it’s worth the money it fetched in the auction. We can even argue that Mecum got a bargain out of it.
Watch the amazing video of the Chevrolet Camaro Convertible by West Coast Customs’ auction after the jump!
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