The 2020 Chevy Camaro ZL1 1LE is a Street Legal Track Weapon

and we're going for a

2020

chevy

camaro

zl1 1le with launch control what a handful and if you like seeing cars like this on the road and on the

track

consider subscribing because the only reason we were able to get this on the

track

was because you guys brought us to over 1 million subscribers, so thanks to the Canadian Tire Motorsports Park and we'll talk about the whole track thing later, but the first horsepower is obscure, 650 horsepower and 650 lb-ft of torque from a 6.2-liter supercharged V8 straight from the corvette z06 yeah, yeah, I do it right, so you can really hear that supercharger from inside the car, yeah, and also from outside, just from the front, and that exhaust sounds amazing, one of the best sounding cars I've ever heard, like this one. spoiled me, yes we love the red eye on the Hellcat.

We loved everything about the Hellcat. This makes for a slightly less supercharged sound, but a much better exhaust tone. Yes, probably one of the best American shades of all time and boy, that's pushing it to be the best shade. car that you can buy for less than a hundred thousand Canadian dollars yeah very good value so obviously with me behind the wheel I want to start talking about the looks because this looks absolutely wild especially the front end it looks crazy from the front there's a lot things. it's basically all the vents, they're all functional, there are crazy dive planes on the side, it's wild, it looks like a total danger on the road for any pedestrian, oh yeah, totally like I don't know how this is approved for safety in case shock, but neither do I.

I don't care, it's fine on the front, we also have the

chevy

bowtie that is hollow for more air intake, I guess so, it has to be a cool performance touch, we have the cool headlights, we have the old style front because It's not the new style that apparently everyone hated and that I didn't dislike at all, but this looks better, yes, this looks much better. I prefer these headlights to that nasty upgrade and now we have this cool carbon fiber piece on the hood, yes this is part of the 1le package so it's a carbon fiber insert in a matte black wrap, it looks really aggressive and when we lift the hood we see that it's supercharged, yes, and that's where you can see that this is exactly a Corvette engine, however, it's not a Corvette transmission. but we'll get to that later from the side view we haven't really driven a

camaro

since the first transformers camaro yeah we haven't really driven a camaro let's say yeah okay we got it I love the look of the camaro.

I love the body lines, it's so aggressive, it's so chiseled and I think this is definitely the best one in the last 15 years. Oh yeah, this is a very attractive car, it's a muscle car like it's a sports car and what do you think of these? wheels, I really like them, the concavity of them, I love the way these wheels look, I love how wide they are, they are huge when you see this roll like the width of these wheels is crazy, yeah there's 325 in the back, which is absolutely huge. and the front is huge too and then we have nice red 1 piece brake calipers made by Brembo.

Overall, it seems crazy, it seems like this is 100 a track car because it is 100 a track car oh yeah, and let's talk about that. The track car rear wing is part of the 1le package, it looks so silly but it looks totally efficient, yes it's all carbon fiber and it also takes up all the rear visibility and the visibility here is also generally pretty bad but it's not the worst . Okay, it's up there for the worst, okay, yes, but it's still habitable. Name a car that is worse. Mclarens is okay, but I mean, okay, man, he's the worst.

Thanks, I don't mind, and then we also have cool taillights on. the back here and they're blacked out and looking at those real exhaust tips they look so good Chevy nailed it. I love how they expand near the end of the tips and I love how they are perforated and have holes all over them, yes, like trumpets. It's good and it sounds great, we should uh, yeah, let's play a clip, but it's a shame you can't speed it up. Yeah, when you're parked, it stops at 4,000, like, yeah, but maybe it's to save the engine. They know people who have it are going to abuse it, and for the record, we also tested it in neutral, so overall it looks good.

I love it. I love it. My first car was a Camaro. I've always loved Camaros. I definitely think this one is better than most. of the things they have released and I am very happy with everything. I would like this in a brighter color if I tracked it but in an even darker color if I didn't track it yeah yeah yeah I think this is a car that Wear black if you're going to drive this on the

street

s so a bit of cliche before you get behind the wheel, oh man, drift, okay, it wants to drift, but I'm going to take it very easy because of all the track driving.

We've been doing it, yeah, so we had a chance to go to the Canadian Tire Motorsports Park with Ron Fellowes and his son Sam Fellowes, so Ron Fellowes runs the high performance driving school at Spring Mountain, nearby from Las Vegas, where we drove the C8 Corvette and so did they. Have the Ron Boys driving experience at the Canadian Tire Motorsports Park Hockey in Canada. However, because we now have over a million subscribers, thanks to everyone again, we were able to close the track for a private day just for us and Sam Fellows took us around the track.

We did a ton of tracking with it, we were able to put this to the test on the runway and it was absolutely incredible on the runway we were flying on. I felt like I was going very fast and that I still had a lot more to do. Wow like this thing had so much grip, so planted and I felt so confident in this, not at all scary, much less scary than the C7 corvette in the middle of the runway, left, center, I feel like I could get knocked down over here, yeah, much less scary and I remember traveling 230 kilometers. on the backstretch and I also remember doing 165 miles on that same backstretch in the gt2 rs, so to sum up our track experience, if you needed a track specific car that was super fast, this would probably be it. indicated, yes, you basically have it.

With full confidence in the traction, we tried all the different traction modes and it was incredible in all of them - it allows the wheels to slip just enough not to scare you, but to grip you through every corner, except we didn't try it completely right. What I said, all drive modes except the office is really a mode that is and we had Sam do some laps to show you how fast this thing can take and here are some words from him about the camaro he's about to take some turns. from ctmp on the zl11le this car is amazing especially for this track the price of this car and the performance capabilities are just disgusting the only thing i will say about it and it's not a bad thing it's a good thing it feels a little brutal because the cg is a little bit higher and you have that 650 horsepower, it feels a little bit, you know you have to hold on a little bit, but there's nothing wrong with that on the brakes, I mean I'm biased, but this car It's fantastic, come on. baby amazing power sounds amazing you devour all kinds of import cars with this thing on a track day this 2 gearbox is just amazing 10 gears you only need six or seven of them here at ctmp this just makes you fall in love with driving this car On this track it's like a perfect combination.

They told me to only do two laps, but screw it, I'm doing a third. I'm sending it to you guys. Amazing, you can really feel the grip this car has. It's amazing just for that small amount of splitter on the front and that wing on the back and that front those front intakes make such a big difference you can feel it through those fast corners like two anyone who says they can't feel it like a liar oh wow just feel this ready and then you'll be good to go okay I'll let it cool down here but this is so good so much fun so comfortable too I mean you gotta hold on because it's got that brutality of horsepower , so I have to wait, but these recaro seats make it a lot more comfortable too, man, I could do this all day, that's what you need after quarantine, a couple of those and for the record, he told us that It was only about two or three seconds. slower than the previous generation corvette z06 on the track, not a big difference for a much heavier car and chevrolet set this up for us before giving us the car yeah so they changed the brake fluid and changed a bunch of things in the suspension because this has adjustable suspension, like lowering the front ride height and changing the overall alignment to track or good, all the time to get behind the wheel, remember some track stuff and get into more track stuff. driving. launch control launch control in race traction is ok basically all wheels spin it's a hard car to launch so we did some launches while we were at ctmp and thought it didn't fit as well as the numbers stayed in line yeah , so this is supposed to go from zero to 100 kilometers per hour in 3.6 seconds.

I don't think we got that time because you need a full race prep service. I think the traction control just isn't on for launches, it's specifically for fast track driving because the C63s also had a much better launch against this one, with a ton less power and thinner tires, yeah, and it The c63 is supposed to run zero to 100 slower than this, but in reality it was faster than this every time and we tested it in every mode we tested it. in sport traction we try to erase traction, we test it without traction, it's just not the car for launches, so in short this is definitely a better track car than a launch drag car, yeah I guess that's more or less than what was designed. because it makes a lot of sense and you can't enter home mode unless you figure out your drive modes and your drive mode.

So how does that work? So the same mode button controls your drive modes and your traction modes, but you have to have the correct sequence after pressing the track control button twice at the correct speed for the drive modes to actually be track. sport and snow and ice and then if I press the traction button twice in exactly the right sequence I get esc competitive mode which then I have wet dry sport 1 sport 2 and race and obviously we can also turn it off completely. In fact, I found that race traction is one of the best modes.

Sport 1 is really good for the road, but it will take you sideways but also wobble. You came back in and I stayed in sport one on the track and for a car with so much power at the speeds that you get in ctmp, I felt very confident that I could keep pushing and keep pushing, yeah, and you can really feel the traction. The control system does its job on the track, so you know it's a very safe system and it gives you a lot of confidence to drive very fast because we're basically right up there with the z06, probably going around eight tenths and it doesn't get stuck. like the mercedes did on the amg performance tour remember we had all wheel drive yes the way the traction control system activates is not abrupt it doesn't just cut the power it just makes the right amount at the right time , it's very cooperative, yes.

It feels like you are one with the car. It does, though I really like your point. This thing works. The direction is very good. You know exactly what he's going to do. The smallest movement translates into actual movement of the car and I love that. So what do we think about this 10-speed automatic transmission? I mentioned that it is totally different than the Corvette Z06 automatic transmission and this one is much better. GM claims it shifts as quickly as the Porsche PDK. It probably does when you leave it in automatic, but it doesn't feel like that when you use the paddles and then we noticed that while we were on the track changing some of the gears they don't really feel like full gears, so since this has ten gears, a lot of they are. very close relationships so I think three four five are very close together, when you shift it's only like a 500 rpm difference and when you're at full throttle you're still on the redline when you shift into the next gear which is crazy, It was like two gears that were identical to each other and we were running a red line on the front screen that is controlled by physical buttons on the left, which is amazing to make it so simple that you have the red lights that go through it. pretty easy to read, but yeah, sometimes it comes at you too fast, but you can also get this vehicle with a six-speed manual and manual transmission, which would be awesome, but probably slower on a race track, but probably a lot more fun and the reason I didn't understand that is becauseI guess they only had an automatic around.

To be honest, it is very difficult to get a manual transmission because many automotive journalists are not very good at it, so it is difficult to have them. in the fleets, yes, yes, it exalts everyone, but it's true, it's true, although I want to drive manuals, yes, too, but I mean it's fun to experience a really fast car, yes, if you leave it in automatic and only in floor. It's stupid fast, I think this is actually the car that shifts automatic faster when you step on it, you let me put it in touring and now I step on it, I don't even know how many gears they went down like that compared to the new Acura NSX we have.

I drove in automatic and it took about a second to get into gear before I had top speed. It's fast? Yes, very fast. It has maximum speed. This is a lightning bolt for an automatic lightning bolt. Puts it in comfort mode. Yes, and now I will send it. cliché in the corner, well, it definitely wants to oversteer, but I feel so comfortable like I'm going to float out of here and I know exactly what it's going to do. It gives me a lot of confidence, especially since I've already driven it on the track. Very high predictability factor. if now let's talk about that 1 package because there's a lot of performance in that package we get multimatic dssv shocks like the ones found on the ford gt and they are canadian made and you also get them on the chevy colorado which are also and we jump yeah, We did it, but I do it.

I have to say this is incredibly stiff if you drive on normal roads, the cushioning is amazing as soon as you get to Toronto full of potholes, it's terrible, my back hurts so don't drive this on terrible roads and you'll be fine. I mean, you can get by, but it's definitely not as comfortable as almost everything else. This is the worst car I've ever driven in Toronto and we've already said a lot about what's included in that 1le package, basically a bunch of tweaks. It's 60 pounds lighter than the regular zl1 and only costs 8500, which is actually a performance bargain for the full price of this car, but if you're a big guy and spend 8500 on a gym membership or a personal trainer , I mean. maybe it could even out maybe i don't know but speaking of money and where you would put it this versus a z06 c7 corvette maybe even a c8 my money is on this this definitely felt less scary and more confidence inspiring yeah , so even though it has the same engine as the previous generation z06 it does not have the same transmission this makes you feel safer it is less scary to drive because it is a little heavier than the z06 so now let's talk about the interior here because we really have it.

I haven't been in a new Camaro, no, so it's a decent interior, but there's still a lot of plastic around it, but there's a lot of alcantara on this one. I think the amount of alcantara is perfect for the amount of hard plastic and the speed of this guy. They could even add more hard plastic and it wouldn't even matter, yeah I mean if you got it even cheaper and with more performance I'm depressed so we even have an Alcantara steering wheel the paddles and everything on the steering wheel are very nice. and we have a lot of good buttons to control everything there and if we look at our meters, they are analog meters, I haven't had any problems with them, they are a little bit delayed in the middle, but I don't really care.

Yes, the digital stuff in the middle is good and it's nice that you have a lot of performance indicators on top at all times and when looking at our infotainment system the first thing I noticed is the strange angle to reduce glare, but it's just a weird angle. and everything looks a little different and it's GM's newest style of infotainment, so you have satellite radios with rewind, you have Apple Carplay, Android Auto and this one has a built-in driving recorder so that when you're on the track You can pop in an SD card and see all your lap times live by recording different overlays.

It's really good for normal people to use instead of a Mercedes. We have to hook up a crazy app to it and it also has a very high resolution reversing camera to help. for all that lack of visibility, yeah, yeah, so we have a bunch of hard buttons for all our weather, which is the best, we have those cool vents that you can change the temperature by turning them, oh, like on the jacket, yeah, write it down well. on your knees the camaro of the suv, but we noticed it while we were on the track after a couple of laps, like the cold air stopped really working for the passenger side, at least probably for the driver's side as well, just you couldn't notice it because you were driving so fast, yes this has 11 heat exchangers to prevent overheating of all the mechanical elements, maybe it redirects some of that air somewhere else, yes that's fine just the passenger maybe not be so comfortable, yes, and what do you think of these seats?

The seats are so comfortable. I love everything about these recaros, there is no adjustable lumbar, but the way the seat is set up, I feel like I don't even need to adjust my lumbar. Most amazing comfortable seats of the year and even on the track they held us in so well, yes. They were top notch and then how about the space in the back seat? I can barely fit behind me and you have no chance of getting in there, no chance in hell, there are no edges and as a pleasant surprise we have some ambient lighting on the side door panels and above the infotainment for a camaro I think which is very cool and we even have heated and cooled seats which is the best and then how about the visors?

Oh, let's figure out three two one, yeah, full pass, but we already knew that because you guys already saw our first video of the camaro c63, so with all the driving today, all the track driving in ctmp off the road, we should probably get there At the price, it's actually not a lot of money, it starts at seventy thousand seven hundred and forty-eight dollars. Canadian and this one has an option of eighty-four thousand five hundred and twenty-eight dollars. I can't believe the incredible performance you get for such a low cost compared to everything else out there.

Yes, you can even eliminate a couple of options here and there. like getting rid of that stupid carbon fiber gas cap for about $500 that the dealer installed. To me, you don't need that. This is probably the car you'd want to have if you want to hit the track, yeah, and we haven't. I talked about the obvious rivals, the Mustang GT350 and GT500, which we drove recently. I drove the older GT350 a long time ago so I barely remember it, but I remember the GT500 vividly. That thing was an absolute animal, just like this, but I think.

This splits the difference between the GT350 and the 500 in terms of horsepower and price, yes it's hard to compare them because we haven't had a chance to take the GT500 to the track at CTMP yet, hopefully soon but overall this I used to do. I think the M2 Competition was the car I recommend to everyone. I feel like this one lives up to that and if I was more track focused I would take it. Yes, I totally agree that we love the M2 Competition. I'll still recommend it, but for people who are tired of the m2 competition they say what's next, this is the car you're going to get next.

Yes, I agree 100, so let us know what you think of the camaro zl1. Were you surprised by how good it was? As much as we were surprised because, to be honest, I had no idea. Now check out our review of the Shelby GT500 right here. Which is better the GT500 or the Camaro ZL11LE? I don't know, was it ZL1? Oh, if you're American, I'm not American.