Camaro

“Sam, you need to grow up,” said numerous friends and every family members who are still alive. My response is always an ardent, “No.” Look, I don’t want to grown up, I’m a Toys R’ Us kid and while Toys R’ Us is out of business, Hot Wheels is not.

There are a handful of sports cars which have been staples of the American gearheads’ diet for decades. The big ones being the Ford Mustang, the Dodge Challenger, the Chevrolet Corvette, and the Chevrolet Camaro. Each of these cars has followed a unique path of evolution throughout its history, sometimes paying tribute to their heritage, while other times trying to reinvent its looks and capabilities for a new generation.

Early last month, Hennessey Performance announced that it had built a car specifically designed combat the Dodge Demon down at the drag strip. The car is called The Exorcist and it is a hopped up Camaro ZL1, making a claimed 1000 hp at the crank.

When it comes to muscle cars, most of the talk of late has been focused on the Dodge Demon. We don’t even know how much power that thing will offer yet, but Hennessey Performance is betting it’s not enough to stop The Exorcist.

The new 2017 Yenko/SC Camaro might not be quite as awesome as the elusive Yenkos from the ’60s, but it is still a very cool car nonetheless. The 2017 Yenko Camaro comes with a custom-built 416ci engine with an aluminum block, a forged 4340 steel crank and h-beam rods, forged aluminum pistons, CNC ported polished LT1 cylinder heads, and an LT4 fuel system.

Jay Leno gets to check out and drive all kinds of cool cars, and on the latest edition of Jay Leno’s Garage he spent time with the Ring Brothers and one of the coolest 1969 Camaro’s ever made.

A few months back, I had a chance to take a hot lap in a prototype of the new 2017 Camaro ZL1, and it was pretty darned impressive. I have yet to drive the production version, but a few of my friends in the automotive media recently did, and it looks and sounds fantastic.

The Camaro ZL1 is now officially the most-powerful factory Camaro ever produced. When it goes on sale, it’ll come with a supercharged LT4 6.2L V8 making 650 horsepower. For those wondering, that’s the same horsepower as the Z06 Corvette!

It used to be that muscle cars were all about straight line performance, with little thought put into road racing prowess. That has changed, especially in the last few years with Ford offering track focused cars like the Boss 302 and the Shelby GT350.

I recently had an opportunity to attend the grueling 24 hour race at Daytona International Speedway called the Rolex 24. Being a WEC sports car race, many of the cars you see are variations of the vehicles you can go into the showroom and purchase yourself.

I’ve watched all the Transformers movies. As a child of the ’80s, I grew up with all the cartoons and toys too. I never liked the Autobot cars that much in the films, except for that classic Camaro that Bumblebee turned into in Age of Extinction.

Normally we couldn’t give a hoot why GM would be spending $44 million on one of its production facilities, but in this case it’s for a very cool reason. The company has this awesome Performance Build Center in it’s Bowling Green Kentucky assembly plant where you can pay extra and get to go build your own engine for your Corvette Z06 or the Camaro Z/28.

Chevrolet recently kicked off an epic 48-state tour of the U.S. with a convoy of its new 2016 Camaros leading the way. I was fortunate to be chosen for the trip, and got to drive the leg that kicked off in Salt Lake City, Utah, and ended in Bozeman, Montana.

The Camaro ZL1 is a cool car built for the track, but I have never been a big fan of that car. The problem with any forced induction car for road racing work is that when they get hot, you lose power.

Chevrolet has unveiled the first official performance numbers for the all-new 2016 Camaro. To say the numbers are impressive is an understatement. Even the base 2.0L turbo Camaro has performance you would have needed a V8 to achieve only a few years ago.