Chevrolet has finally priced the 2014 Camaro Z/28 and the number is both surprising and also, for lack of anything better to say, not surprising. I’ll cut to the chase: it’ll run you $75,000, including a $995 destination charge, but excluding tax, title, license and dealer fees.
If you’re thinking this seems like a lot for an American pony car with some aerodynamic bits and a bigger engine bolted on, you’re right. Look at it from another angle, though, and it’s a steal.
What angle is that? It’s the one where you realize that the Z/28 is faster around the infamous Nurburgring than a Porsche 911 Carrera S and the Lamborghini Murcielago LP640. Those cars cost $84,300 and $380,000 respectively. Suddenly, the Chevy is quite the deal.
What do you get for that money? You get a 7.0-liter LS7 V8 that makes 505 horsepower and 481 pound-feet mated to a close-ratio six-speed manual, which is backed by a Torsen limited-slip differential.
Chevy is also quick to note that the “Camaro Z/28 is also one of the first production cars fitted with race-proven, spool-valve dampers, which allow four-way damping control, enabling engineers to precisely tune both bump and rebound settings for high-speed and low-speed wheel motions.”
This all sounds great. That is, until you really think about it. Digital Trends contributor Peter Braun perhaps put it best when he said, “Driving the Z/28 must be absolutely terrifying. And driving it the rest of the time has to be uncomfortable as all get-out.”
So there we have it. You can have perhaps one of the coolest, fastest, best handling American pony cars of all-time that – for a measly $75,000 – can beat a Murcielago around the ‘Ring … and your spleen right out of your body.
If it were my money, I’d get the top-spec 556-hp 2014 Cadillac CTS-V for two fewer grand. But that’s just me.