Price Camaro ZL1

Design Camaro ZL1

The Chevrolet Camaro was a real badass. The sleek two-door coupe was the epitome of reasonably priced sports cars, easily going head-to-head with competitors like the Pontiac Firebird Trans Am GTA, Nissan 300ZX, Toyota Supra and Mazda RX-7.

At the top of the Camaro pecking order was the IROC-Z, an $18,000 American muscle car with a naturally aspirated 5.0-liter V8 pumping 215 horsepower to the rear wheels. If its five-speed manual gearbox was shifted perfectly, the 3,430-pound coupe could blast to 60 mph in 6.6 seconds leaving nothing but a pile of rubber from its 16-inch Goodyear Eagle VR50 Gatorback tires. At the hands of an expert, the hatchback could lap the Big Track at Willow Springs in 1:44.

The Camaro's visit just happened to coincide with a planned day on the track with Open Track Racing, a private group that rents Southern California racing circuits and holds events for enthusiasts.

While we weren't technically racing (that's a whole different ballgame), the opportunity would allow us to run flat-out on a very familiar circuit against some of the Chevrolet Camaro ZL1's biggest adversaries. As an added bonus, the track is more than 100 miles away, which meant that the high-performance sports car would have to coddle us on the pre-dawn drive to the track, hold its own against its competition on the track and then pamper us again for the long evening drive home.

The independent suspension is fitted with GM's third-generation MagneRide shocks at each corner. With two electromagnetic coils on each shock (instead of one) and a more powerful electronic control unit, the system adjusts damping 1,000 times per second (about one adjustment per inch of vehicle travel at 60 mph, says the automaker). The revised system is not only quick enough to firm up the shocks during spirited driving, but under braking.

Engine Camaro ZL1

Highway miles passed under the chassis effortlessly, and the throaty exhaust note rumbling outside the windows reassured us of the power on tap. Passing was a non-event, but holding our speed down below the legal limit was a challenge. We didn't like the manual climate control, as it required fiddling with the settings each time we passed through different microclimates en route to our desert destination (a single-zone automatic climate control should be standard in a $55,000 vehicle).

Other passengers in the vehicle also complained about a lack of cabin lighting at the time of our dark early morning departure and a hard center armrest that bothered elbows. Not in any hurry, we kept the gearbox in Drive and ran at just over 70 mph trying to use cruise control as much as possible. Despite a climb over a mountain pass, our highway fuel economy averaged 18.2 mpg, according to the trip computer (the official EPA rating is 12 mpg city and 18 mpg highway).