For three days, a perceived eternity, he must watch from his grim slanting eyes the eternal rival Mustang, who presents himself in smiles on the exhibition area of the Festival of Speed, called FOS for short. Every year, and since 1993, Charles Gordon-Lennox, known as Lord March, opens the doors of his estate, Goodwood, to a huge car garden party featuring vintage, racing and supercars.
For automakers a dignified and glorious opportunity to introduce car fans with their latest sporty models. Of course, Chevrolet does not want to take the new Camaro in its sixth generation here. Childish hands smeared his beefy heel over and over again by soft-serve and fries, mothers smiled, pushing their strollers dangerously close to his precious 20-inch rims. Much more pleasing are the wistful looks of the young and young men. In smart polo shirts, with or without a tattoo on the forearms, they gather around the hardcore American and reverently pray down his indexes: 453 horsepower at 5.700 revolutions per minute, torque of 617 Nm at 4600 revolutions, top speed: 290 km / h and in 4,6 seconds from 0 to 100 km.
Again and again curious glances on his engine, when the hood was once a moment to the view was plucked. What can be special about this eight-cylinder, which is now classic American on displacement. That fits and fits the Camaro - always. But even a veteran feels the climate change: Chevrolet equipped the Camaro now with six-cylinder and even four-cylinder engines. Ford did it in the Mustang. And because the Europeans also tick in the matter of driving behavior with their winding country roads unlike US customers, Chevrolet has tuned his Camaro for the old world firmer and trimmed to match the European fuel prices on consumption. The half-portion eight-cylinder still makes 270 PS, brings 400 Newtonmeter on the crankshaft and should consume only 8,1 liters on 100 km.
The visitor's shop talk about the purpose of small engines and the good old days interrupts or drowns out the martial screeching of cranked engines when a car comes up again on the famous Hill Drive, the 1,8 kilometer long, very narrow course lined with straw bales the area is hunted. Clear the ring for the most powerful Camaro of all time, the ZL1 is making its rounds. It sounds like music to the ears when the eight-cylinder with 649 hp, a maximum torque of 868 Nm and open exhaust system flaps is left off the chain and finally leaves its black stripes on the asphalt.
The scents of chips & fish, lager beer and burnt rubber are still in the air, the party is over and the more civilized version of the eight-end American sledge makes its way past the trampled lawns of the aristocratic property. On the other side of the English Channel, which he has crossed with the car train and the pausing aggregate, he greedily inhales fresh continental European air with a scent of freshly mown grass. The engine bubbled richly, the pistons rotate in the eight cylinders with a displacement of 6,2 liters. Whenever a local loiter slows down the progress, the Camaro briefly throws itself into the stuff and leaves it behind with the deep rumble of the archaic sucker.
For the driving pleasure in the new Camaro with the eight-cylinder one should ever hold at least 45 900 Euro ready.
Text: Solveig Grewe / Photos: Thorsten Weigl