Chevrolet Camaro ZL1

A used price of £55,000 places this car only 415th in cost across the 600 cars in the catalogue, yet every horsepower works out at just £85. That tension deserves attention because the figures refuse to behave as expected. Cars with 650 bhp are rarely associated with this level of value, especially when that output still ranks 136th across the entire collection, comfortably inside the top 23 percent. The conclusion is difficult to avoid. Judged by what it asks and what it returns, the arithmetic is unusually persuasive.

The supporting numbers reinforce the point rather than weaken it. A supercharged 6.2 litre V8 producing 650 bhp and 881 Nm sends its power to the rear wheels, reaching 100 km/h in 3.7 seconds before continuing to 318 km/h. Those figures place it 244th for acceleration and 187th for top speed within the catalogue. Neither ranking claims absolute supremacy, but both sit comfortably in territory that most collections would regard as genuinely serious. The result is a car that spreads its strengths rather than concentrating everything into a single headline statistic.

Context makes it more distinctive still. Only 17 cars in the catalogue combine a supercharged V8 with this layout, and only 132 pair a V8 with rear wheel drive at all. The formula is therefore far from commonplace, even before considering that just 31 of the 600 cars originate from the USA. Chevrolet contributes only seven cars to the collection, so the ZL1 represents a relatively focused expression of what that manufacturer brings to the wider catalogue. The fixed head coupé body with its 2+2 seating adds another layer of practicality without changing the central character suggested by the mechanical specification.

For anyone assembling a dream garage, the question is not whether the figures impress in isolation but whether they justify the space they occupy beside everything else. Here they do, largely because the price never drifts as high as the performance suggests it should. The 2017 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 stands as a reminder that value is not the opposite of capability. Sometimes it is simply the point where capability becomes difficult to ignore, and these numbers make that case quietly, consistently and with very little need for embellishment.