The 2017 Chevy Camaro ZL1 Is an Amazing Bargain For $65,000

it is 650 horsepower and lose 0 to 60 in 3.6 seconds and it does a top speed of 198 miles an hour is it the latest Ferrari or Lamborghini no it's a Chevy Camaro and you can buy one for less than a well-equipped pickup truck of course this isn't just any Chevy Camaro this is a 2017 Chevy Camaro zl1 and it is the ultimate Chevy Camaro and yes it cost less than a well-equipped pickup truck these things start around 62 thousand dollars figure 64 66 maybe 69 with some options but with these numbers you'd expect it to cost three times that and the numbers I said before are true it'll do basically 200 miles an hour which is the same as a Lamborghini Huracan do 0 to 60 3 and a half seconds which is the same as a Porsche career GT and it has 650 horsepower which is the same as a ferrari enzo and yet this isn't some European supercar it's a Camaro built in the Midwest in a city that has a minor league baseball team called the lug nuts so today I've borrowed this zl1 from a viewer here in New Jersey and I am going to show you around that I'm going to show you all of its interesting quirks and cool features and then I'm gonna take it out on the road and tell you what it's like to drive the ultimate Camaro and then I'm gonna give it a dug score and for more of my thoughts on the zl1 experience click the link below to go to autotrader.com slash oversteer to start I got to talk about the Train mission now the zeal one is offered with a 6-speed manual or a 10 speed automatic the 10 speed automatic was co-developed with Ford the archrival of Chevrolet and this car has the 10 speed automatic which is supposedly faster than the stick shift the 10 speed is also used in a few other Chevy and Ford vehicles including the new Ford Raptor next up my favorite interior quark of this car that would be the climate controls not you wouldn't think climate controls could be interesting but they are in the new Camaro now if you look at the climate controls you have all the controls in the middle of the car just like you'd expect but how do you change the temperature there's no button for you to do it well it turns out that the little silver ring around the climate control vents themselves change the temperature if you move it to the right it gets warmer and if you move to the left it gets cooler and the little screens that display the temperature change as you move the little silver rings I think that's a really cool little Easter Egg for making it warmer or cooler inside the Camaro and speaking of interesting climate controls another one is the way you adjust the amount of air that comes out it's kind of cool it's just a little button you push just like in every other car turn it up or down but what I like is the little tiny orange lights that display exactly how much air is coming out for some reason it's a really cool little detail no different than every other car next up we got to talk about visibility which has been a problem in the Camaro since the last generation model came out in 2010 it's one of the drawbacks is sort of the retro design there's a big pillar here and so over your shoulder it can be hard to see out behind you there are some benefits of this one though this car has blind spot monitoring which does a lot of the work for you there's a little light in the mirror that turns on and if you put on your turn signal the light blinks to let you know hey there's someone in your blind spot next up you got to talk about getting in back and as usual I will climb in the back to amuse all of you people the biggest problem that I see is the seat belt you can't really get it out of the way but with the seat all the way forward it's not that hard to climb in back and I can put the seat back and I'm okay back here the legroom is tight here in the back seats but you expect that this is a two-door car so you kind of figure the legroom is gonna be a little tight and it's really not that bad compared to what I was expecting but the legroom isn't the biggest problem in back the real problem with the back seats is the Headroom I'm sitting here right now if I sit upright my head has to go like this it's incredible if you look at the top of the back seats there's only about four inches between the headrest and the roof of this car basically anybody who sits back here kind of has to tilt their head even though General Motors has provided a generous little cutout for additional Headroom it doesn't really help all that much one other interesting thing about the back seats back here in the back seats between the two seats there's a little pad for wireless charging now there's not a pad like that in the front seats there's only one in the back seats apparently it's to make backseat passengers feel better about their lack of Headroom one other thing about that wireless charging pad if you take a look at it the warning label for how you're supposed to use it points toward the front seats so they kind of figure it's the front seat passengers who are going to be using it and the rear seats won't really be occupied that often next moving on to all this cars cool performance tech features and quirks and there are quite a few and they're all really interesting for example if you have this car in sport or track driving mode and you put the transmission lever in manual shift mode the heads-up display in the windshield that will light up like an old-time drag strip with green yellow and red lights that tell you when it's time to shift and that is really cool speaking of manual mode another cool thing I found in this car if you're trying to shift and the engine isn't going fast enough to get the next gear a little warning light will come on in the gauge cluster that says shifted denied sorry next up is the performance data recorder or as all the Camaro people call it the PDR it was an option in this car cost like $1300 extra and it is absolutely worth it and here's why a lot of cars have this thing where they measure your laps and your lap times and your track speeds and all that but that is nothing compared to what this guy's this car has a built in dash cam with an SD card and it records your lap in really high quality so you can just drive along on the racetrack and have a full record of it and it gets even better not only does it record it it also prints your speed your g-forces at the bottom of the screen it is one of the coolest things I've seen you can even watch it and playback in the car and if that wasn't the coolest part of it then the coolest part would have to be valet mode here's how valet mode works before you can the keys to a valet you go into valet mode in the center touchscreen and you enter a four-digit pin twice to confirm you want the car to go into valet mode then it shuts down everything you can't even turn on the stereo anymore once it's in valet mode and it automatically records using that dash cam what la does with your car that is the coolest thing in the world there's no more fears the valleys gonna trash your car in the parking garage and if he does it'll be on camera and if that wasn't cool enough then there's teen driver mode same deal for teen driver mode you go in with a little pin enter the car into teen driver mode and then you can monitor what your teen driver did in the car how do you monitor it if they're driving it because the car's gives you a report card afterwards it shows it for the infotainment system and it actually shows you how many times the teen floored it how many times they slam on the brakes and use anti-lock breaks whether they turn off the traction control it shows you their maximum speed and it even shows you whether or not the teen violated the speed limit because this car shows you the speed limit in the gauge cluster so it knows how many overspeed incidents your teen driver did it is one of the coolest things I've seen in a car it just monitors your teen to a crazy level but then again you probably want that if you're going to trust them with your Camaro zl1 now another cool thing inside the infotainment system this car gives you the ability to change the color of the interior lighting now a lot of cars have that you can change it from blue to red to green but in this one you have like 50 options in every color you want blue fine you want a darker blue fine you want a lighter blue fine you want purple fine darker purple light green red it's all there or another cool thing you can do with the interior light strips may be cooler than actually changing it yourself you can set them to match the drive mode that you're in so if you're in normal mode they light up as blue like they do in a lot of General Motors cars or if you go into sport or track mode they get redder and redder as the car gets air and where exactly are these light strips whose colors that you can change well they're actually pretty visible for example there's one on the door panel on both door panels there's one in the middle and the cupholders and there's another one right on top of the infotainment screen right on your line of sight on the dashboard a couple of other interesting things inside the interior specifically an engage cluster there are two notable quirks one of which is the ability to change the whole car to metric now that's not that unusual but the thing I like about this car is it doesn't actually change the speedometer just change how the units are displayed so your former 200 mile an hour speedometer when you change it to metric it becomes 200 kilometers an hour so you could only see the car go to 120 miles an hour which means theoretically you could have this thing pegged at 200 if you change it to metric another interesting thing inside the age cluster is it shows you your tire temperature now this isn't that uncommon for performance cars but the cool thing and this one is it shows it to you by color so if your tires are cool it's green and as they start to heat up they get yellow and then eventually red obviously it also shows the temperature but that is a really cool idea the visualization a few other interesting things the steering wheel is line in Alcantara which I love it makes it so much grippier it's fun to drive around in and it's better on the track as your hands get sweaty and hot track days the interesting thing about the steering wheel is the bottom it says 50 that's because this is the 50th anniversary of the Camaro which came out of course in 1967 it doesn't say 50 or 50th anywhere else in the car just in the bottom of the steering wheel and you wouldn't know what that means unless you know what that means another interesting quirk is down here on the door and that would be the placement of the trunk opener button now it looks like it's just randomly through in the middle of the door panel but it isn't really all that random it's actually there for a reason when you're opening the door you can put your hand here to open the door and then with one motion you can open up the trunk press the trunk button that is smart thinking from Chevrolet and that leads us to the trunk now you could open it on the door panel like I just showed you or there's a little button on the key fob that you can use to open it or you can open it down here with a little button right above the license plate that I bet mini Camaro owners don't even know is there you press it the trunk pops open now the interesting thing about the trunk in this car is it's surprisingly large except because federal regulations prevent Chevrolet from putting the taillights on the trunk itself they have to stay put and that means the trunk opening is pretty small now the weird thing here is the trunk is larger than the opening so there's some stuff that you could probably fit inside the trunk that you can't actually get in the trunk because the opening is relatively small interestingly this car does have folding rear seats in the back so you can fold them down to get even more stuff in the trunk assuming that you can get it in the opening and since I'm outside this car it's time to talk about the engine now like I mentioned before this thing has 650 horsepower and that comes courtesy of a 6.2 liter supercharged v8 it's the same engine that they use in the Corvette zo6 which is a very serious car on its own now there are a couple of other interesting things up front in addition to the engine one of which is the big carbon fiber piece on the hood that says zl1 on either side now that isn't just there for show if you look it goes into the hood it actually sort of curves downward and inside the hood you can see that there are some heat extractors the whole point is it brings in cold air and then it does or it needs to and then it gets rid of the hot air so that isn't just cosmetic now the other interesting thing in front of the zl1 you can clearly tell that you aren't looking at just a regular Camaro if you simply glanced at the front end this car has a really aggressive front end design with all sorts of holes to allow in as much air as possible the coolest thing I think is that even the Chevy emblem on the front is hollow to allow more air in now Chevy's badge is typically called the bowtie and so when it's hollow like this in this car they call it the float I but despite the stupid name Chevy says the float is actually functional it allows an additional three cubic meters of air per minute into the engine and it lowers the temperatures by two degrees so I'm fine with the float I then and then of course there's the zo ones exhaust note which sounds nice and aggressive take a listen those are all the interesting quirks and the cool features of the Camaro zl1 and now it's time to get out on the road in this thing in a Camaro with more horsepower than a McLaren 650s in a Camaro with a higher top speed than a Porsche 911 gt3 RS alright that I put in track one in the steering is considerably heavy like it's crazy you can feel it instantly so if I put it back in tour oh it lightens up so much I don't know that I've ever driven a car where the steering was so obviously different between both the first thing you notice when you're climbing this car is the sound I mean just turning it on just to like shoot the little things around the car the little you know the infotainment system on every time I turn on you don't start laughing because the exhaust is so good down ships are so good they're also really quick somebody's gonna call the cops in about three seconds well I loved the sound it really sounds like an old-time muscle car it sounds like a muck like a muscle car should sound but it's a lot faster oh is it oh my god Wow Oh steering us so tight in this track Wow there's nobody who owns one of these not gonna get pull over unless except for the people who keep me in their garage it just goes you two go faster because the sound is so amazing when you're going really fast and obviously it gives me the thrill of getting kick back in your seat but then also it does all this performance stuff like it shows you your g-forces it it lets you measure your 0 to 60 time and blah blah blah it's one of these cars that is begging you to abuse it the owner tells me not that many people notice it but some people notice that car people notice it is the cool hot new Camaro so someone like a pickup or you know it g4 whatever they're not gonna notice but car people notice that when I was filming with it a guy in a red charger came up and he got really excited oh it's the zl1 you know at low speeds this car is actually pretty docile like it and it doesn't it doesn't it's not I get your stop to the light it's like a old muscle cars like it's like rumblin you know like ever you can feel everything rumbling the big prom at the Camaro and the charger and challenger and all these cars is the Beltline is real high it makes the car look cool but it sacrifices visibility and it makes you kind of feel like you're like riding in a bathtub almost like you're sitting and every all the walls are up around you the downshift into first gear in like 30 oh just sounds so cool you know it feels like a bigger car on this road and there's no doubt I mean it is a bigger car but it also barely body rolls it's not an S 3000 or Miata it seems like that but you can with brute force you can throw your way through these corners if you're used to driving a Miata or a Boxster or something like that you'll find this car to be large but it handles it very very well all these cars the GT 350 are there just do such a great job minimizing the impact of their size and we know this cars track performance we know what it's done like this is the full package people are gonna talk badly about Camaro forever you know it's still got that sort of redneck image and that's just what it is but they've now General Motors doesn't screw around anymore they're not just throwing big motors and cars they haven't put a lot of engineering into this is a serious car and it's really well done and you can tell the moment you take it out on the road so that's the Camaro zl1 Wow I've heard this thing as fast I've read all the numbers and yet it still astonished me and this isn't just a Camaro with a big engine this is a full package with serious power and serious performance I get the Camaro stigma and while it may not be an m4 or a Porsche if you can get past the fact that this is just a Chevy or only a Camaro it's also a really good sports car with some serious performance and now it's time to give it a dug score starting with the weekend categories and styling the zeal one is nice enough but the latest Camaro isn't necessarily beautiful more blocky and retro and it gets a six out of ten next up is acceleration the zeal 1/2 0-60 in three point four seconds and it's hard to believe but that means a Camaro gets a nine out of 10 handling is good but it's not really that nimble I really think a lot of the reason this car manages to go so quickly around corners is in part due to brute force and massive power still it handles well with minimal body roll and good steering and it gets a 7 out of 10 the cool factor is strong this will probably subside as newer versions come out but right now this car is hot and it gets a 7 out of 10 and then there's importance this car is certainly above average but it's not exactly a Ferrari or a limited-production exotic so it gets a 6 out of 10 that brings the weekend score to 35 out of 50 placing it right next to some serious cars moving on to the daily categories starting with equipment the zl1 is loaded it even has ventilated seats and it's only missing some of the top safety tech which most zl1 owners probably don't care about anyway and it gets a 7 out of 10 comfort is fine it's not overly comfortable or especially punishing and it gets a 5 out of 10 quality is surprisingly good especially for a Camaro this is a legitimately nice place to spend time and while it's no Mercedes it's miles ahead of the 4th gen Camaro I remember when I was growing up and it gets a 6 out of 10 practicality has 11.3 cubic feet of cargo space which allows it to just squeeze into a 4 out of 10 much like you'll have to just squeeze things into its tiny trunk opening and finally there's value these are easy to find in the 65 to 75 thousand dollar range and they aren't being marked up much they offer supercar performance for a third of the cost and it's an easy 8 out of 10 bringing the total daily score to a 30 out of 50 placing it surprisingly high on the list add it up and the total dug score is 65 out of 1 which is reasonably high but no surprises the zl1 is a good value well equipped and of course it offers excellent performance but we aren't done yet I've already filmed a video of the ZL ones rival the shelby gt350r and i know you want to know which is better so I decided to Doug score that car too and the comparison is right here you'll notice the zl1 beats out the gt350r by one total point but you'll also notice the zl1 wins the value category by two points largely because everyone is marking up gt350 r's like crazy the average asking price on auto trader right now is still more than 87,000 dollars if the gt350r comes down in price it would win this comparison the zeal one has a better interior and it's faster but the gt350r has some of the best steering and handling of any car I've driven and I happen to think it's just a little better looking these are both wonderful cars but I personally would take the Mustang and that $87,000 asking price suggests the market agrees with me you

Channel: Doug DeMuro

Views: 2,154,966

Rating: 4.8735571 out of 5

Keywords: chevy camaro zl1, camaro zl1, zl1, chevy camaro, chevrolet camaro zl1, chevy zl1, chevrolet zl1, new camaro, new zl1, 2017 zl1, 2017 camaro, chevy camaro zl1 1le, zl1 1le, 2017 camaro zl1, doug demuro, demuro

Id: XP6fdBHSdi0

Length: 18min 22sec (1102 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 29 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/Liger_Zero]

Built in dash cams should become more common.

[u/StaniX]

Im still laughing at "Shift denied". It should play a sad sound effect when that happens.

Edit: Teen driver mode is the best thing i have ever seen, that should be available on every car.

[u/[deleted]]

I noticed the speedometer doesn't go higher than the car's top speed. That's a relatively rare thing isn't it?

[u/MythresThePally]

Thank god you didn't have the same big moment as with the Challenger Hellcat, hehe.

[u/Braap01]

Anyone think there will be a Z28? I'm assuming the ZL1 1LE took that spot

[u/randomshazbot]

hey /u/Doug-DeMuro, I can't post on Reddit from work, so would you mind moving your entire upload schedule back to like 4pm central so I can get the free karma for posting these? y'know, unless it's too much to ask /s

[u/yashdes]

Damn /u/Doug-Demuro 2 videos in 2 days

[u/DavidPHumes]

You fingered the flowtie. Nice!

[u/OmniaMors]

As a ford fanboy, its painful to admit how much I like this car haha