bossco

Well there is some infighting - just step into a GT500 forum and mention that the Boss is the best Mustang with the best engine ever.

The Boss guys have a sense of humor though, they will wax all day long about what is the point of all that power if you dont have control then slap a blower on the road-runner motor and boost the hell out of it

5thgen69camaro

Welp ok now I understand why you think what you do. Thanks for clarifying.

I agree 100% with this but to beat a dead horse here to my mind an LS7 (or similar) type motor would be ideally dropped in an 1LE. That would be more subitble Z28 than stripping a 1LE and match what went into the Boss 302


We are talking apples and oranges based on which each of us feel a hypothetical Z28 could or should be.

In your scenario, if you are simply talking about stripping a SS 1LE and slap some stickers on to make a Z28 or renaming an SS Z28 where you have essentially the same car possibly stripped then yes I see your point.

In my scenario where the Boss is direct competition to Z28 which GM said when ZL1 was revealed with the moniker ZL1. "It's interesting the relationship between the Boss and Z28." The Boss motor is leaps and bounds above the GT motor and essentially appears to be a streetable race motor. The GM equivelent unless a new better motor with a similar objective was being developed would be LS7. The what is higher without parameters of what benchmarks or goals of what higher is I think are a little silly. I am not sure what research you are refering to but I seem to think Mustang and Camaro are closer historically with their monikers than you do. Mustangs monikers historically have been just as unstable as Camaro. Ford has been pretty good about the GT moniker consistancy but thats about as far as it goes. The Cobra name which is the 2 seater roadster an entirely different car was slapped onto Mustang with the Cobra II and Cobra Mustang.
Shelby is using the Super Snake name on the same token when it only applied to Bill Cosby's and Carroll Shelby's twin supercharged AC Shelby Cobra's Shelby used to be the road racer in the 60's. When Shelby left to Chrysler the Shelby name was replaced by Boss. Even though the names were both road racers today the Boss is the road racer where Shelby is more of the upscale street car.

What about LS8 tuned minus the super charger so its naturally aspirated and possibly better geared as a track car?

Valid points on whats cost effective for this Gen. I just cant get past how ford nailed the Boss to a T. They mentioned it wouldnt be a car you could just build with aftermarket parts and delivered a race car with race motor. The GM equivilent motor I would think would be LS7, with more power and its already finished. Its interesting the history between Z28 and Boss. There is a Gapping hole between 1LE and ZL1. In the 40's too expensive to canibaliaze the SS 1LE let alone the SS, and if it takes any sales at all from the 58k ZL1 580hp then they were looking for a bit of a different monster in the first place. At least that's my thoughts...

5thgen69camaro

Wow! I think they nailed them actually with the exception of COPO not being titled for street use. Would you have been happy if the current ZL1 was a Z28? It's not naturally aspirated which a lot of people here have mentioned forced induction motors like ZL1 and Shelby to be magazine queens good for a couple laps rather than road racers like the Boss. For a Z28 the price is astrinomical but not astrinomical compared to the COPO ZL1 historically. Limiting production to 69 models I always thought a bit silly personally. The 1969 COPO ZL1 was not limited to 69 models, that is all they were able to sell with that expensive exotic motor. Its a nice sentimental thing but no other Moniker has been limited to the amount of models they were only able to sell in the past. If they could have sold a million 1969 COPO ZL1s they would have sold as many as they could produce...

jg95z28

Would I have been happy? I'm not sure. I can see the marketing strategy behind calling it ZL1 as the uber Camaro with GM already naming their uber Corvette ZR1. I've already said that for me the 1LE with a more powerful naturally aspirated V8 would be my perfect Z/28.

In the previous post I was merely pointing out that I don't buy into the theory that the reason there is no 5th gen Z/28 is because GM is "saving the name" for something "more appropriate", which goes back to the old "the Camaro is too heavy and doesn't deserve a Z/28 model" syndrome. That's a complete load of BS in my mind.

Quite frankly, I don't expect the 6th Camaro to be significantly lighter or smaller than the current version... yes even if it is on a modified version of the Alpha platform. (There still remains no evidence that Alpha has been developed to handle a 400+ hp V8, so it would probably need to be 'modified'.) At best we might see a 300-lb weight savings. Is that enough for a "more appropriate Z/28"? Give me a break.

Nope. I'm beginning to think that the reason there is no Z/28 is because GM doesn't want a Z/28. They'd rather kill off the name than use it on a new Camaro. Remember how the Z/28 name was treated as a second class citizen to the SS with the last generation? While times have changed, certainly GM's attitude toward the Z/28 and its heritage has not gotten any less frosty.

GM has gone all in with their new naming convention of LS, LT and SS for the performance Chevrolets. Only "special" or "limited edition" vehicles will get iconic names like ZL1. (Corvette is a different animal altogether.) Remember, these are the same geniuses who called a convertible pickup "SSR" and are calling their next V8 rwd performance sedan simply "SS". Heritage tends to get distorted when marketing comes into play.

SSCamaro99_3

All you would have would be a lower compression LS3 with less favorable N/A heads. Really not worth the trouble.

LS7 in the current 1LE package, probably would have been ageeable to just about anyone as a "proper Z/28". Unfortunately, does not seem to be part of the plan.

Did some 1969 COPO 9560/1 research. Seems no internal GM documents refer to it as a ZL1 package. THat was simply the motor designation. probably gets all the historical play becasue it sounds better than trying to rattle off COPO 9560 all the time. So technically there was no 1969 ZL1. There was a 1969 Camaro bought using COPO 9560/1 that featured the ZL1 engine.

99SilverSS

While I would agree that technically GM is misusing the ZL1 and COPO the reality is both cars do their name justice even if they might not fit the true historical usage. I don't think anyone is saying that because Chevy isn't limiting production of the ZL1 at 69 that the moniker shouldn't be used.

And really ZL1 and COPO are rather obscure both to the average Camaro buyer in 2012 and neither suffers from heavy heritage expectations.

Z28 is different. In fact I would say since Chevy hasn't created one during this 5th Gen that the hysteria of what the car should or could be grows with each passing new Camaro model that isn't Z28. Especially since Ford brought back a great BOSS 302.

Not slapping Z28 on what is to be the 2013 1LE package on an SS is probably a very smart move. And I would add to your point that beacuse the 1LE doesn't have a power increase over the SS is a reason why it's not called Z28.

I agree.

jg95z28

While I agree in part; the 1LE does have power-train improvements with the transmission and differential. I suppose they could have put a better flowing exhaust and CAI on the LS3 and eeked out a few more horsepower, at least enough to give it some distinction over the "base" SS.