Today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe Camaro is V8 powered, manual equipped, and turbocharged, and just like Julie Andrews sang, those are a few of our favorite things. Let’s see if this super clean SS’s price can be added to that list.
Ferrari is on my list of “marques I appreciate being around but have no interest in ever actually owning.” Yes, I know the provenance and the experience—I’ve driven both 8 and 12 cylinder cars—and yeah, they are on average pretty sweet. I however, simply don’t want to put up with the drama. It’s the same reason I chose not to marry Britney Spears when I had the chance, I just don’t do high-maintenance. Actually, now that I think of it, the whole Brit-Brit thing may have been a dream, it’s hard to tell.
A lot of you had similar reservations about yesterday’s 1995 Ferrari 348 Spider owing to a not so forthcoming ad and the fact that the 348 is presently the Rosso Corsa-headed stepchild of the Ferrari family. That resulted in its $49,900 price finishing the day with a narrow 53 percent Crack Pipe defeat.
Back in the early 1980s Road & Track magazine equated the third generation Chevy Camaro to a Ferrari, saying the car was more beautiful than the Italian company’s 308 GTB, then considered one of the world’s most handsome designs.
Time has been kinder to the Ferrari than to that era’s Camaro, but that’s okay because we have this fourth-gen 2000 Camaro SS to ogle, and it backs up its looks with what its seller claims is a turbocharged LS1.
That turbo is a Huron Speed kit, which would set you back about two-grand in parts, and here has been plumbed onto what the ad says is an LS1 with some serious mods inside and out. The work presents well and seems thought out—high tension lead insulation, increased capacity oiler, etc—however there’s no detail on who did the work, nor how old the installation is. Stock horsepower would have been around 325 so a dyno run would be enlightening now.
Behind the blown mill sits a T56 six-speed manual with a stage 3 clutch throwing back to a 10-bolt rear end. The suspension has also seen significant time shopping in the aftermarket, although that’s all hidden behind a stock ride height and factory SS alloys.
The bodywork on top of all that looks gorgeous in its Navy Blue paint. These cars are eerily reminiscent of the contemporary Acura NSX in style from the rear three-quarter, especially with the big wing and the black-painted B-pillar as on this SS.
Speaking of pillars, there’s a pair of gauges on the A-pillar here, and more in the instrument binnacle as well. The rest of the interior looks pretty stock and appreciably immaculate. One thing that should be pointed out however is that this Camaro comes from an era when GM simply couldn’t do interiors at all.
Every single element in here seems to stand out. There are joints and gaps that are either uneven or way too big, and it’s all overly plasticky. Plus, did we really need to see AIR BAG on the dash in quite so horsey a font? Don’t blame the car or the seller for all that, blame GM which in the early aughts was doing shit like this across the board.
That all should be easy to overlook should the car prove to be as entertaining as its specs portend. The ad notes the car to have been “adult-owned” and “never raced on the track.” The title is clean and there’s only 61K on the clock.
The seller also notes that joy riders need not come ‘round, and that trades are off the table, so put your mom’s Faberge Egg back on the shelf. What he wants is cold, hard cash, $13,750 of it to be exact, and we’re here to decide if this turbo Super Sport is worth that.
What do you think, does this Camaro seem to warrant that asking based on its ad? Or, is this a built pony car with a price that needs some deconstructing?
You decide!
Kansas City Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.
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