Like many car enthusiasts, when Chevrolet announced that they were reviving the much-revered ZL1 moniker I took immediate notice and anticipated something very special as a result. Initial speculation was indeed promising, as they talked about a slightly detuned version of the Corvette ZR1's ferocious LS9 engine (which makes 638 supercharged horsepower in the Corvette ZR1). So, with all of this performance potential on-hand, what could possibly go wrong?
I'll tell you what...plenty.
One of the keys to the original Camaro ZL1's genius when it was first sold in 1969 was that it was an extremely limited edition car. I believe something like 50 were ever sold, making it one of the rarest cars of all from Chevrolet. The reason for this back in 1969 was that the ZL1 model effectively doubled the price of the Camaro, and thus it found very few takers...and I think they would have built more had demand existed. Although it could be argued that you cannot make a modern business model this way (and I'd agree with that), it really bothers me to hear that they may build as many as 5000 examples of the new ZL1, thus completely diluting this great name in my opinion.
Another really sore spot from my perspective is the monstrous curb weight being presented for the new car. Although even the base 2012 Camaro is no lightweight, it sounds as though the ZL1 model will tip the scales at 4200+ pounds. That is absolutely ludicrious for any performance car not made by Bugatti, and just goes to show how little manufacturers think about the big picture of automotive performance. They would much rather take the 'cheap' way out and add gobs of horsepower and content, yet allow the curb weight of the vehicle to continue to balloon up to absurd levels.
Why is that a big deal?
The competing 2012 Ford/Shelby Mustang GT500 will have a better power-to-weight ratio with it's much lighter (something like 400 pounds less, need to check my references for precise numbers) curb weight, and what that means is that for all the hype of the new Camaro ZL1, it's going to fall short of challenging the existing Mustang GT500 on the road course and possibly on the drag strip. What a let down!
I think manufacturers are just way too concerned with making a quick buck and less concerned about developing well thought out products. I hate the fact that many of them are tarnishing their own historically significant products by doing quick engineering and rushing out to market. There are very few products which I feel were properly re-engineered for release, and the 2005-2006 Ford GT is pretty much the best case example of this.
*UPDATE*
I see that since I wrote this post that Chevrolet has released a Nurburging laptime for the Camaro ZL1 at 7 minutes, 41.27 seconds. Although that is definitely very impressive and does indeed challenge some very serious machinery, I can only think "what if they had made it lighter?".
Case in point, see how it fares around the cars around it with regard to the laptimes versus the power of the engine. You will suddenly see that instead of being impressive, you can instead start to think "wow, they could have done a lot better with less weight on board". So, it is definitely the fastest Camaro of all-time with regard to this record, but look how inefficient it is overall when you consider how much power it has relative to it's similar lap-time peers.
7m42.99sec - 2008 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 - 505 hp
7m41.27sec - 2012 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 - 580 hp
7m33.00sec - 2011 Porsche 911 GT3 RS - 450 hp
7m32.02sec - 2008 Porsche 911 GT2 - 530 hp
7m29.03sec - 2009 Nissan GTR - 480 hp
Keep in mind that it's important to compare lap times at the Nurburgring when conducted by the actual manufacturer. Plenty of independent lap times are also recorded there, but they are not considered 'balls to the wall' runs, so it becomes harder to compare those times with the real manufacturer times, who all have a vested interest in producing the best lap times possible.
Here is a site where you can see those published times (updated with regularity): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_N%C3%BCrburgring_Nordschleife_lap_times
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