Now, we'd don't mean to hurt the fifth-generation Chevrolet Camaro's feelings, but it's a little, um, how should we put this . . . big boned? We mean that literally: It's portlier than is ideal for a pony car because of its bone structure, which is a cut-down version of the same full-size sedan platform that sits beneath the Chevy SS and Caprice police car. We've long expected the new 2016 Camaro to weigh less, and Chevrolet is now making official claims to that effect.
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Chevy says the still-secret 2016 Camaro weighs "at least" 200 pounds less than today's Camaro, mostly thanks to its Alpha rear-drive architecture shared with the Cadillac ATS. Our scales will be the final arbiters of any real-world weight savings (or not), but it's a nice bit of PR for now. In our testing, the outgoing Camaro coupe weighed between 3800 and 4200 pounds in its various iterations.
-As for how Chevy says it saved pounds, the new Camaro switches to a fully aluminum suspension that's said to be 21 percent lighter than an equivalent steel setup, while another 9.7 pounds is saved by switching to an aluminum cross-car beam (the bar that runs between the A-pillars behind the dashboard).
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- Five for Five: Five GM Designers Weigh In on Five Generations of Camaro Design -
- 2015 Ford Mustang GT Manual Tested: More Refined Than Ever, but Still a Stallion? -
- Chevrolet Camaro Research: Full Pricing, Specs, Reviews, and More -
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If the weight savings are true, the car could end up fighting in the same weight class as the excellent, all-new 2015 Ford Mustang; in any event, a focus on removing weight ought to bode well for making the Camaro handle even better. To that end, lead Camaro engineer Al Oppenheiser states that the fifth-generation Camaro 1LE, essentially a track-prepped SS, was the 2016 model's dynamic benchmark and that the newer car "brakes harder, flicks into corners more quickly, and drives out of the corner faster." It isn't explicitly stated, however, whether the comparison is actually to the 1LE or some other fifth-gen car, nor do we know to which version of the 2016 car he's actually referring. We'll know more in the lead up to the 2016 Camaro's May 16 debut at Detroit's Belle Isle Park, and the real verdict will be rendered once we slide behind the wheel.
-from Car and Driver Blog http://ift.tt/nSHy27
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