Wednesday, October 29, 2008

The Last First


Okay, so what car guy didn’t or still doesn’t want a classic Chevy like the Camaro? Arguably the best Chevy ever, you know you have a hot rod if you’re cruising around in a 69’ Camaro. Designed for speed and more speed and then more speed you were king of the road if you had the 69 Camaro, but not just any of them it had to be the ZL-1!
Chevrolet only made 50 and only because that was the magic number to be able to race it. The engine alone cost more than the car ($4,160) which brought the cars total to roughly $7,200. Its quarter mile time was spitting out low 11s at 122MPH. That was the fastest car ever produced by Chevy; I know what you’re thinking, so what right, don’t forget that Chevrolet at the time was on top of the speed world with cars like the corvette and Impala.
Okay so the ZL1 was an Aluminum monster. All aluminum head, aluminum block this engine weigh as light as a small block but produced nearly double the horse power. The engines’ rating was right at around 500bhp. You could spin the tires off anything with that kind of muscle. The engine turned the newer style of the Camaro into probably the meanest car of its era and even before!
When you see that perfect Camaro rolling down the road, don’t think of this car, this car was better. That may be a lie, I’m sure someone in the world could prove me wrong; but common, this car was years before its time. It was a street legal race car that blew away the competition. Camaro sold more cars in 69 than ever before if that can’t prove my point I don’t know what will. The late 60s were by far the muscle car era but never has a car dominated its time like the 69’ ZL1 Camaro.

2 comments:

Va-Tech777 said...

I definitely agree with you that this was an incredibly fast car and with its light body and motor it just increased the speed that this car could run. My dad owned one of these when he was a kid and got plenty of tickets in it but he also owned a 71 fastback Mustang which he said that he liked so much better because of the reliability factor. Although he did say that the ZR1 was much faster but it also had a medium block in it. As for the late sixties ZR1; it was definitely an automotive advancement.

AJ said...

The '69 camaro is one of my all time favorite cars. My dad has had several camaros and I have always loved them. Although, he never had a 69 camaro, I still love that car. If you ask most "car" guys what kind of car they like, it would definitely be the 69 camaro. My dad had a 77, 84, 89, and 91 camaro. These were all amazing cars. He had to get rid of his camaros because he had kids. The camaro is by far my favorite car and my dad's favorite car. I hope that someday I can buy him a camaro like he used to have.