Announcing the “Camaro” Challenge
Earlier today, Jalopnik featured the recent review of the 2010 Camaro SS on Top Gear. It went something like this:
Did you watch it to the end? I didn’t. Most true car fanatics wouldn’t, either. It’s almost as if someone brought the Mercedes on-set to piss off Chevrolet, or to make American cars look bad, or some other petty, vindictive reason.
However, it does bring up a good point. Here in Canada, the Camaro in the “2SS” trim package has 422 horsepower, 408 lbs. of torque, gets 19mpg, and has 93 cubic feet of interior space, all for a whopping $41,430. The Mercedes E63 AMG has 518 horsepower, 465 lbs. of torque, gets 15mpg (which qualifies our American readers for an additional “guzzler tax”), and has 97 cubic feet of interior space, for a mere $106,900. And no, it’s not available with an actual standard transmission.**
Now, Top Gear doesn’t really care about what a little website like this says, so I’m not going to call them names. I’m just going to call them out.
What we need is someone-anyone-who has invested up to, and including, $106,900 into their 2010 Camaro. And a track. I’m throwing down the gauntlet for Top Gear and for Mercedes, to compete against a Camaro your own size (and price range.) If you’ve dropped $2k on a supercharger, that’ll work. If you’ve dropped $10k on a supercharger, bigger meats, lowered suspension, headers and a loud exhaust, that’s better. And If you squeeze 500+ ponies out of a V6 Camaro, we DEFINITELY want to hear from you.
We also have no budget whatsoever, so don’t expect to receive any compensation or payment unless we pick up a big sponsor (GM? Hennesey? Lingenfelter? Buhler? Buhler? Buhler?). But, should you choose to accept the challenge, we’ll find a Benz, find a track, and find a video camera to make sure the results are spectacularly displayed on Youtube for all teh intrawebs to see.
Got car? Shoot me an email at jordan.morningstar (at) gmail (dot) com. Someone has to stand up to the hampster’s tyrrany, and that someone might just be you!
**sources: MSN autos Canada, fueleconomy.gov.
