In its quest to build a better sports car, the 2016 Chevy Camaro has had to shed a lot of stereotypes regarding American muscle cars, as well as a lot of weight. Knowing that pounds are on enemy of performance, GM shaved every ounce it could from the curb weight of its new Camaro, even as it installed a monstrous 455 horsepower LT1 engine under the hood.
Bringing a lighter and more powerful Camaro to a stop meant adding even better brakes, and GM was happy to brag that the 2016 Camaro could go from 0 to 100 MPH and back to 0 in just 313 meters, or about 1,026 feet. Making such a claim is one thing, and proving it is another, so GM enlisted stunt driver Martin Ivanov to prove this claim by accelerating towards the open ocean.
Placing Ivanov and a 2016 Camaro on the runway of Skydive Dubai, GM carefully measured 313 meters, and then gave the stunt driver the go-ahead to prove them either right, or wrong. Thankfully for Ivanov, GM’s engineers are good at their calculations, and the stunt driver wasn’t even a split-second late in smashing the brake pedal when it came time to stop accelerating. Even so, the margin of error was just a couple of feet, helping GM make its point all the more.
Unfortunately, the superior performance of the 2016 Camaro compared to its primary rival, the Ford Mustang, has not yet translated into sales success. GM’s launch of the 2016 Camaro has been comparatively lackluster, without the same fanfare or world-spanning events that Ford threw for the Mustang. GM instead thought to rely on the Camaro’s superior performance as a selling point, but it might be time for more videos like this to enthuse the Bow-Tie faithful.