15 Coolest Camaros Through the Years by MSN Auto

[Rocky1974]

Originally Posted by kevinw

i didnt realize there was a ZL1 way back in 69. wow. its amazing that now the v6 stock camaro engine puts out what the early 396 engines did, and even the 350 engines of the 2002 SS camaro. great article though.

It's even more amazing than you realize. All pre-1972 engines were rated in SAE Gross Horsepower. All '72 and up engines are rated in SAE Net Horsepower. This creates a huge difference in the numbers, a 100 horsepower or more in some cases. I have an article that claims that a 325 horsepower 396 only makes about 220 Net Horsepower. That 3.6 V6 actually has more power than a lot of the Big Blocks of the Muscle Car Era!

[Angrybird 12]

Originally Posted by Rocky1974

It's even more amazing than you realize. All pre-1972 engines were rated in SAE Gross Horsepower. All '72 and up engines are rated in SAE Net Horsepower. This creates a huge difference in the numbers, a 100 horsepower or more in some cases. I have an article that claims that a 325 horsepower 396 only makes about 220 Net Horsepower. That 3.6 V6 actually has more power than a lot of the Big Blocks of the Muscle Car Era!

But in most cases the performance motors were under rated for insurance reasons. Then there's the torque factor. Most of those big blocks put out 400+ lb ft of torque which is way higher than the puny 270 or so our V6 puts out.

[AZCamaroFan]

Originally Posted by ChrisBlair

lol, isn't that another way of saying "almost any Camaro made could get on this list"?

YES. They're all awesome

[ChrisBlair]

Originally Posted by wayne watson

I knew a guy that worked at the plant where copo camaros were built in 69
He said they were all alum blocks and entire car was hand built. I have no reason not to believe it because they were very rare then too

Well the ZL-1's big deal was the aluminum block. In 1969 that was a major thing for a large V8. GM had done it before, but with the 215 V8, hardly the same clambake. The ZL-1s also had aluminum heads. Hand built, well sure as much as any low-number production Chevy was hand built in the era before robotic construction. In the same manner, my '73 block 455 was "hand built" by Buick, because it has one oversize lifter bore requiring a factory oversize lifter. But these things weren't "hand built" the way we use the term today.

The odd things is that while the '69 COPO/ZL-1 Camaros were made to be dragstrip fighters, ultimately problems with things like heat transfer could be as much of a downside as the weight of an iron block engine. Still, they were churning out around 500 gross hp when the factory exhausts were changed to tubular headers

[Rocky1974]

Originally Posted by wayne watson

I knew a guy that worked at the plant where copo camaros were built in 69
He said they were all alum blocks and entire car was hand built. I have no reason not to believe it because they were very rare then too

He's pulling your leg. There were thee COPO's available on 69 Camaros.

COPO 9560 had the aluminum block ZL1 427, rated at 430 horsepower(actually around 500, SAE Gross). There were 69 of those built. 50 of them went to Fred Gibb Chevrolet in LaHarpe, Ill. The other 19 went to various dealers around the country. The price of this COPO was $4150, making the engine option more expensive than the base car it was being installed in and making the car with the engine more expensive than a Corvette.

COPO 9561 had the cast-iron block L72 427, rated at 425 Horsepower(actually around 450 SAE Gross). 201 of these went to Don Yenko Chevrolet in Cannonsburg, Pa, for conversion to Yenko Super Cars. An unknown quantity(less than 600) went to various other dealers around the country. The price of this COPO was $489, making a 425/427 Camaro $130 LESS expensive than a 375/396 Camaro.

COPO 9737 was called Sports Car Conversion and consisted of a 1" front sway bar, 15" Rally Wheels w/E70-15 tires, and a 140 mph speedometer(later in the year it also included a tachometer). This was an attempt to take some of the "plain" out of the "Plain Janes" and was only available in conjunction with one of the other COPOs. Any car that has this COPO is a double COPO. Most of the Yenkos had this option, but some of the other cars that were sold around the country also had this option. The price of this COPO was $160($184 w/tachometer)

All of them were built in Norwood(Cincinnati), Ohio, along side all the other Camaros, using no special procedures and standard X11(Style Trim) and X44(non-Style Trim) bodies. They had no external markings, but they had all the heavy-duty Big-Block hardware in their drive lines. They all had ZL2 Cowl Induction hoods, but many of them didn't even have rear spoilers. Most of them had body-colored 14" wheels and small "dog-dish" hubcaps. They looked like a six-cylinder granny car that somebody had put a Cowl Induction hood on. This prompted their first nickname, "Plain Jane". The COPO name didn't come along until much later when collectors started digging into just how they were constructed. They weren't in the brochures, ordering guides, parts catalogs, or any other documentation. As far as GM was concerned, they didn't exist. GM built them strictly for one purpose, to win races, but considered them to be politically incorrect. Their intention was to sneak them out the back door, put them in the hands of racers and then deny publically that they ever built them. I tried to buy a part for one in the mid-seventies and the dealer parts department told me that they never made such a car. And this was the dealer that sold it new, along with six other ones!

[Firefighter]

My favorite years in chronological order... 1968, 1970 1/2 split bumper, 1987 IROCZ, 2013 1LE, 2013 ZL1, 2014 Z/28.

[ChrisBlair]

Great article on the 1969 Camaro ZL-1 in "Classic Auto Restorer" magazine, August 1994 issue.

http://www.amazon.com/Classic-Restor.../dp/B001MS5AL8

(I got my issue when it was new )

[BlaqWhole]

Originally Posted by ChrisBlair

lol, isn't that another way of saying "almost any Camaro made could get on this list"?

Yea that is the same thing I thought. Its just a list of every Camaro variation.

[BlaqWhole]

Originally Posted by SS PANTHER

Dump all the Camaros from 1974-2002. Poor performance, styling, and build quality.

Ok, here is a guy who has no idea what he's talking about. From 86-02, the top line Camaros, Firebirds, and Trans Ams offered the most powerful engines and the fastest cars available at their price range. So if Camaros had poor performance, then EVERY car on the planet around the same price had poor performance...which still means that comparatively, the Camaro was STILL the best performer.

[Wolvie70]

Originally Posted by BlaqWhole

Ok, here is a guy who has no idea what he's talking about. From 86-02, the top line Camaros, Firebirds, and Trans Ams offered the most powerful engines and the fastest cars available at their price range. So if Camaros had poor performance, then EVERY car on the planet around the same price had poor performance...which still means that comparatively, the Camaro was STILL the best performer.

Agreed, an argument can be made for the build quality (most were crap, not just camaro/firebird) or you may not like the styling but performance was on par. Especially the 4th gen.

[Rocky1974]

Originally Posted by Angrybird 12

But in most cases the performance motors were under rated for insurance reasons. Then there's the torque factor. Most of those big blocks put out 400+ lb ft of torque which is way higher than the puny 270 or so our V6 puts out.

And some of them were overrated too and the only ones that were underrated were the ones at the upper end of the horsepower ladder. The torque ratings were rated in SAE Gross then verses SAE Net now also. I'm not trying to tell you that today's V6 has as much torque as a Muscle Car Era Big Block, but the difference is not as much as you would think. Horsepower owes it's existence to torque. No torque, no horsepower.

[v6sonoma]

Some of those 2nd gens just never did it for me but boy do I want to fix up a nice 3rd gen some day.

[ChrisBlair]

Also bear in mind that the car manufacturers out and out lied then as they do today.

GM: It's a 402? We'll still call it a 396! It's a 401? Tell the bean-counters its a 400, that will get us around the corporate ban.

Ford: Our new engine is 428 cubic inches, just like one we already have? OK, call it a 429!

All of them: we can make 400 hp and then the engine detonated on the test stand? Great! Rate them all at 400 hp

Actually, I can think of only one instance (Buick) that not only used repeatable average hp output, and under-rated hp, in an effort to get the division to sorta look the other way. Their back-door racing program was closed down just the same.

[Rocky1974]

Originally Posted by SS PANTHER

Dump all the Camaros from 1974-2002. Poor performance, styling, and build quality.

While I agree that there were some real duds in those years, there were certainly some gems also. Styling is subjective and lets face it, no Camaro had much in the way build quality until the 5th Gen. Performance took a sllde in the early seventies, but made a big comeback from the mid eighties until 2002. Those 1998-2002 model were LS powered and nothing with a LS in it is a slouch!