2018 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE - First Look REVIEW
Channel: Premium Cars
Date: 2018-01-11

The 1LE badge wasn't meant to conjure up an image of a track-dominating pony car, originally. It was just an ordering shorthand, a Regular Production Option, a box to check so the line worker knows what to bolt onto the next car. Some RPO codes have acquired a mythos, becoming marketing terms unto themselves. 

ZR1, Z71, Z28. But the 1LE, despite sounding like a base trim level on a Cruze, is something special.  Racing plays a large part in the 1LE's beginnings. In the mid-1980s, Camaros were running in a Canadian showroom stock class called Player's Challenge. The hardware GM was screwing on the cars from the factory wouldn't cut it, so the engineers devised a brake and handing package and then picked an RPO code to sell it under. GM wasn't marketing the car, probably so as not to draw competitor's attention to the enhancements, but by the fifth generation GM realized the 1LE resonated with the Camaro crowd, and the Zeta 1LE (a handling package on SS models full of trickle-down ZL1 bits) helped bring the RPO code out of obscurity.  Don't forget that the 1LE badge is tacked onto the back of another legend, ZL1. That code originally snuck massively underrated, race-developed big-blocks into a few unassuming '69 Camaros. Heady stuff. The new ZL1, now in its second generation as a supercharged super-Camaro, is a combination of show and go – and it actually handles, too. (If the ZL1 1LE is too much, you can also spec 2017+ V6 and V8s with a track package sharing the 1LE code.)    Much of what Chevrolet changed is in order to leverage some truly impressive rubber. The last-generation Z/28, a good reference point for the new 1LE, used some very sticky Pirelli Trofeo Rs, barely street legal and grippy like hot tar. Chevy switched to Goodyear for the 1LE's tires, steamrollers at P305/30ZR19 and P32530ZR19. The Eagle F1 Supercar 3Rs, thanks to an exotic compound and more width in the rear (the Z/28 wore 305/30s all around), trounce the Trofeo Rs. These are DOT-legal tires, although on the hairy fringe of sanity, and a lot of the reason the 1LE can corner at 1.10 G.  That's right. 

One-point-one. That's a tenth of a G increase over the Z/28, and would best a 991 GT3 RS. Who said pony cars can't handle?  A lot of that is due to the control provided by the Multimatic DSSV (Dynamic Suspension, Spool Valve) shocks and the way they're mounted to the Camaro. They're similar in basic operation to what the Zeta Z/28 wore but recalibrated for this car's weight and the tires. The rears are essentially identical to Z/28 units, but also recalibrated. Up front, the struts get aluminum bodies instead of steel, topped by a two-position camber plate (-1.5 for the street, -3.0 for the track). The rubber isolator was ditched, so these are hard-mounted to the shock towers – more rigidity and precise control, and it saved a bit of weight. The spring perch is adjustable so you can change the ride height up or down 10 mm. There's more adjustability in the rear stabilizer bar, with a neutral position as well as a +10 percent and -10 percent stiffness position. The rear cradle is also hard-mounted, with aluminum pucks instead of rubber.    

Read through all that and you'd expect a joint-rattling ride. It's certainly stiff, but the person the 1LE will appeal to won't mind. Everyone else can save some dough and just grab a regular ZL1 with its more compliant rubber mounts and Magnetic Ride suspension.  As radical as the handling hardware is, the powertrain is largely the same. The engine output – 650 hp and 650 lb-ft of torque – and calibration are identical. The Tremec 6060 six-speed manual, the go-to 'box for American performance cars, has a shorter fifth and sixth. The eLSD has a unique calibration, but the final ratio is the same. That's pretty much it on the powertrain side.  Chevy did jettison some weight in order to offset the goodies it bolted on. And by some, I mean a lot. The aluminum bodies on the front shocks, for example, saved 18 pounds of unsprung mass alone. In total, the DSSV shocks are 23 pounds lighter than the Magnetic Ride system found on the regular ZL1. The rear seat is thinner, made of stiffer foam, and won't fold down – that's good for some mass reduction. A thinner rear window saves 4-5 pounds. It's a wash compared to the no-A/C Z/28, which of course was on a larger and heavier platform to begin with, and about 75 lbs lighter than the current manual-transmission ZL1.  If the equipment the 1LE had underneath it was serious, so was the place we'd be finding out how it all worked together. Area 27 is a brand-new Canadian road course, just north of the American border in British Columbia. It's long – 3.1 miles – and technical enough to load up the 1LE and toss it around a bit.