A biweekly roundup of automotive news, good, bad and just plain weird:
Camaro ZL1 1LE is the fiercest Camaro yet
GM guys are big on their codes. While Dodge has the Demon and the Hellcat, and Ford has the Boss and the Shelby Mustangs, GM crowns its highest performing machines with simpler labels.
The ZL1 is essentially a Camaro with a Corvette engine, and it’s wonderful. I had an opportunity to sling one around the track at Willow Springs, where it easily hit 240 km/h on the front and rear straights, and could be slid under braking around the uphill curve at turn three. It was at-once ferocious yet relatively intimidating to drive.
But Chevy wasn’t done yet. Their 1LE package adds extra aerodynamic tweaks to the ZL1 – including a massive wing – wider tires front and rear, and the replacement of the flexible magnetic ride dampers with trick spool valve shocks from Canada’s own Multimatic. You can also fiddle with the 1LE’s suspension yourself, thanks to adjustable perches and adjustable camber settings up front. Every racetrack is a little different, and Chevy will let you dial in your 1LE Camaro until it’s just right.
Curiously, the 1LE only comes with a six-speed manual, which indicates it’s built for a certain type of enthusiast consumer. That’s maybe a shame, as the 10-speed automatic is one of the best autos on the market, honed to near-perfection at the Nürburgring.
And while this is currently the fastest Camaro, capable of eating any current production Mustang, there’s still the iconic Z/28 badge waiting in the wings. The Camaro development team is not known for being conservative – who knows what’s next?
New Ford Fiesta ST goes three-legged
Just ahead of its official reveal in Geneva, Ford is showing off details of their new Ford Fiesta ST. Currently, the FiST (as owners often abbreviate it) is one of the scrappiest little hatchbacks you can buy. It only comes with a stick shift, and is more fun to drive than a Mini. Or almost anything else.
As you’d expect, the new model packs a little more punch. The previous version provided 197 horsepower briefly, through a temporary over-boost function, while the new one will give you 197 h.p. all the time. What it will not give you is four cylinders.
Instead, the new Fiesta ST uses a high performance version of Ford’s Ecoboost three-cylinder engine, displacing 1.5 litres. As if that wasn’t enough cost-cutting, the little three also provides cylinder deactivation, meaning it can be running on as few as two cylinders under light loads.
In an age when Dodge is pushing out the boat with massive supercharged V-8s, a three-cylinder compact seems a bit odd. The Fiesta ST joins such quirky little three-banger machines as the Pontiac Firefly Turbo. Not exactly a rocketship.
However, and always assuming Ford doesn’t cancel a North American appearance for the Fiesta ST, small car sales being fairly dismal of late, the FiST could still be a complete performance bargain. Horsepower and capability are up all across the board, but speed limits are not. Just as with the old version, this new Fiesta should prove that all you need is a light curb weight, a little less than 200 h.p., and lots of boosty turbo noises. Looking forward to it.
E-Hybrid is most powerful Panamera yet
We’ve been expecting Stuttgart’s riposte to the mighty Tesla Model S for some time, and here’s at least the first salvo. The very-long-named Porsche Panamera Turbo S E-Hybrid is a monster, combining a twin-turbo V-8 with a 136 h.p. electric motor and 14.1 kW lithium-ion battery.
Total power is a spectacular 680 h.p. and 626 foot-pounds of torque, enabling this most-powerful Panamera to hit 100 kilometres per hour in 3.2 seconds, and go on to a top speed near 310 km/h. Tesla-heads will note that the P100D is quicker off the line, as long as you dip into Ludicrous mode, but it’ll be interesting to see if the Panamera hybrid requires less of a cool-down moment between runs.
Further, while this isn’t quite the full-electric Mission-E hybrid Porsche has been showing off, it is basically a four-door version of the 918 Spyder supercar. Total electric-only range is a relatively scant 50 kilometres, but if your regular commute is downtown and back with a weekend sprint over to Tofino, the Panamera has the legs to handle both.
Further, this kind of power in a top-level turbo executive sedan presages the future. A plug-in hybrid 911 seems inevitable.
Ford’s lost city still exists in Brazil
Early last week, the New York Times reminded everyone of a forgotten piece of automotive history: Henry Ford’s bizarre Brazilian rubber plantation. In the late 1920s, Ford sought to avoid relying on suppliers by founding an entire town in the Amazon jungle, set up for farming and harvesting rubber trees.
It was called Fordlândia, and it was a total disaster. The town was assembled like some sort of Midwestern Pleasantville, with little thought as to what might actually suit the local workers. Alcohol was banned, as was tobacco. Everyone was expected to subsist on canned goods.
Eventually, the rubber trees became diseased, having been planted much too close together. The workers, who had been paddling out to illicit merchant riverboats loaded with hooch and, ahem, ladies of the night, rioted in 1930. They cut the telegraph lines and eventually the Brazilian army was sent in.
The first town was abandoned in 1934, and when synthetic rubber was invented in 1945, Ford pulled out of Brazil completely. Even so, a few hardy people resettled in the area. Today, the town has a population of around 2,000, and you can still see relics like a 50-metre- tall water tower, and the old sawmill. It’s an odd piece of Detroit history, far from home.
Watch this space for all the week’s best and worst of automotive news, or submit your own auto oddities to [email protected]
