First Sketch: 2013 Chevrolet Camaro 1LE


If you’re considering the purchase of a 2013 Camaro SS coupe with a manual, you’re going to want to look at the 1LE package. And if you weren’t considering a new Camaro, you might be now. The option group is intended to transform The General’s affordable V-8 coupe into an affordable V-8 coupe that can stop and turn. Sort of sounds like a Mustang we know.

The 1LE name is plucked from late-‘80s Chevy history—the package prepped a Camaro for road-racing duty by stripping unnecessaries like the radio and A/C, installing different gearing, upgrading the brakes, and messing with the suspension. This new-age 1LE keeps the convenience features but receives similar improvements, many of them sourced from or inspired by the ZL1.

Chevy previewed the 1LE package with a concept at last year’s SEMA show. The production model will replace the Camaro SS’s standard Tremec TR6060-M10 six-speed manual transmission with a close-ratio TR6060-MM6 six-speed stick and a higher final-drive ratio of 3.91:1. The transmission also gets a cooling system, like on the ZL1. The V-8's output is unchanged from that of manual SS models, at 426 hp and 420 lb-ft of torque. Suspension modifications include a larger, 27-mm front anti-roll bar, a 28-mm rear anti-roll bar, ZL1 toe links, ZL1 rear shock mounts, a strut-tower brace. Beefier half-shafts are supposed to help cope with the improved traction, wheel bearings come from the ZL1, and the fuel system has been upgraded with the ZL1’s high-capacity fuel pump and additional fuel pickups to avoid high-g fuel starvation. The 20x10 front and 20x11 rear wheels are inspired by the ZL1’s rims and are shod with 285/35ZR20 Goodyear Eagle Supercar G:2 tires at all four corners, the same ones that come on the ZL1’s front wheels.

The only important items not carried over from the 1LE concept are the ZL1’s magnetorheological dampers. Instead, the production 1LE gets specifically tuned monotube dampers in place of the Camaro SS’s standard twin-tube units. We suspect price was an issue there, and that Chevy has decided to preserve some of the ZL1 suspension’s specialness by not offering it on lesser Camaros.

Thanks to: Car and Driver

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