Preview: 2012 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 is a supercar bargain

Nothing frightens autojournalists more than the nondescript. Awful is better than mediocre. We can work with terrible or excellent in equal measure and neither the sublime nor the ridiculous scare us. Just don’t give us bland.

Hell, then, is a subcompact wagon with a 110-horsepower engine and a tan-on-beige paint job. There is no “it,” no attention-grabbing superlative that is both the car’s raison d’être and our easily discerned headline.

Chevrolet’s new Camaro ZL1 has exactly the opposite problem — a vast plethora of attention grabbers, each worthy of front-page coverage. Should I lead off with its purported 580 horsepower, an above-the-fold headline no matter how little you care about performance cars? Should I tease with its seven-minute 41.27-second time around the world-famous Nürburgring, the circuit in Germany that is now the benchmark for fast cars? Or do I lead with the more pedestrian but equally exciting fact that a Canadian ZL1 will cost only $58,000, a seeming pittance of a markup from the $37,735 SS version and — perhaps even more important to Canadians used to scanning for U.S. bargains — barely seven per cent above the US$54,095 sticker price south of the border?

What’s surprising, however, is despite those noteworthy numbers, the most surprising aspect of the new Camaro is its sophistication. Despite its relatively lowly Camaro lineage, miserly price tag and cartoonish movie roles, the ZL1 is a bona fide supercar.

via Preview: 2012 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 is a supercar bargain | Driving | National Post.