Photos: Edmunds

Chevrolet engineers have promised us that the upcoming Z/28 will be the pinnacle of 5^th Gen Camaro’s performance, but let’s not be so quick to lose sight of the great performance Camaros we have access to in the here and now. To that end, our buddies at Edmunds recently took to the track in a 2013 Camaro 1LE for a little tire squealing fun mixed in with some testing.   

The 1LE may be built as a road-racing track car, but it still accelerates in a straight line pretty well all things considered. The guys from Edmunds recorded a 0-60 time of 4.8 seconds, and a best quarter mile of 13.0 at 108.7 MPH. Interestingly, the testers from Edmunds were able to get the best times in both tests with the traction control turned off completely. In the handling tests they produced a slalom speed of 71.1 MPH (with the traction control on), and on the Skid Pad the Goodyear Eagle F1 Supercar tires gripped well enough to register 0.97 Gs.

There were a handful of complaints however. The Edmunds team repeatedly felt that the steering response from the Camaro’s electric power steering was a bit numb, and as usual, the visibility from the 5^th Gen created a bit of a guessing game when it came to placing the car around the cones. However, with a starting price of just over $37,000, and performance that can hang with some of the best cars in the world, the 1LE Camaro is still an incredible performance bargain.