The Chevrolet Camaro’s horsepower ratings over time. Chart courtesy of GM Media.
Excluding its seven-year absence from 2003 through 2009, the Chevrolet Camaro has been a muscle car staple since its debut in 1967. It’s not uncommon to hear how today’s production cars can’t hold a candle to the muscle cars of yore, but a new chart from GM, graphing the production Camaro’s horsepower across the generations paints something of a different story, while illustrating the evolution of technology (and consumer tastes) over five decades.
When the Camaro debuted in 1967, its base inline six-cylinder engine produced 140 horsepower while the best available 396-cu.in. V-8 version made 375 horsepower. Both figures are rated in SAE gross horsepower, which was, perhaps, a bit misleading to consumers. Measured under laboratory conditions, with ideal tuning and no parasitic loss (from features like power steering pumps, A/C compressors, water pumps, alternators and fan clutches), SAE gross ratings may have portrayed what an engine was capable of, but certainly not what it actually produced in the real world.
By 1972, manufacturers had adopted a new standard generally referred to as SAE net, which still measured engines on a stand, but with stock tuning and standard accessories attached. Per the attached chart, the 1969 Camaro made 375 horsepower (SAE gross) when equipped with the L78 396 V-8, while the 1971 Camaro made in the neighborhood of 275 horsepower (SAE net) when optioned with the milder hydraulic cam 396 V-8, at least according to the numbers provided by GM in this chart.
From 1975 into the early 1980s, the Camaro’s performance was hampered by strict fuel economy and emission requirements, and in 1982 the third-generation Camaro debuted a 2.5-liter four-cylinder engine, producing 88 horsepower, as an option. By 1990, however, the Camaro’s available tuned port injection V-8 produced 245 horsepower and 345 pound-feet of torque, making it the most powerful model since 1973.
Performance increased again with the Camaro’s fourth generation, introduced in 1993, and by the end of production in 2002 the model was again making as much as 325 horsepower in stock form.
Circa 2005, manufacturers switched from SAE net horsepower to SAE certified horsepower, adding third-party verification to a process that previously allowed automakers to self-certify. As a result, output ratings for some makes and models went up, while ratings for others decreased.
When the fifth generation Camaro launched in 2010, its 5.7-liter V-8 produced as much as 426 SAE certified horsepower, but even the “entry level” 3.6-liter V-6 made over 300 horsepower, more than any Camaro built during the car’s entire third generation.
Today, one can walk into a Chevrolet dealership and order up a supercharged Camaro ZL1 that not only produces 580 horsepower from its 6.2-liter engine, but comes with a full warranty, too. Could any of us have imagined such an option in the darkest days of the 1970s?
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