[Provoste]

This past Thursday I instructed with Hooked on Driving for Camarofest 7 at the National Corvette Museum Motorsports Park. We had a huge shortage of instructors, so we ended up doing mostly lead/follow with student groups. NCM MSP staff was kind enough to make their two 6th Gen turbo 4 cylinder Camaro’s available for a few of us to drive in the student groups.

This is the first time I’ve driven another 6th gen Camaro aside from my 1LE. The NCM MSP turbo Camaro’s are both non-sunroof cars on 20' wheels with all season tires and A8 Trans. Bottom line- I was very impressed. The chassis are softer than the 1LE, but wonderfully communicative and excellent on track. Even with fairly low grip M+S tires, the front to rear grip is amazingly well balanced. I drove with all nannies off and in manual mode for the trans. The A8 was better on track than I expected, though I didn’t care for it in auto mode. It was a VERY hot 95 degree day with very high humidity, yet the highest oil temperature I saw was 220f. I was shocked at its oil cooling capacity. I had no A8 temp issues either. Obviously for the turbo 4, GM decided to keep oil temps lower than our 1LE’s, which skyrocket to 270f then saturate there.

I never drove either car more than 7/10ths, though I needed to lean fairly hard on the cars when I had intermediate students doing lead/follow with 6th gen ZL1’s!

So overall, the 6th gen Camaro is terrific in any configuration…. Though I’m still very happy I decided on a SS1LE!

[Gville1LE]

Curious, ever driven a track pkg'd Eco Boost Stang on track to compare it to?

[Michigan1LTRS]

Glad you enjoyed it. It is a terrific power plant.

[JBones81]

It's a good time to be a car guy, no matter your budget!

[Ryephile]

Thanks for the perspective. For sure the 6th gen is really impressive in all its price points. GM really nailed the value proposition on this one.

[TrackClub]

SS 1LE is like a slightly slower Vette for half the price, yet tons more comfy to drive