About a week ago we featured a low-mileage Camaro that the owner believed was a COPO (Central Office Production Order) car. Our readers quickly debunked that idea, but pointed out that it was indeed something special. The 1LE in the option list tells us that this thing was actually built for racing just as the seller claimed. The changes may be hard to see because they were mostly under the skin, but they transformed the car dramatically. There weren’t a lot of these built either, so this Camaro definitely deserves a second look!
There’s nothing under the hood to hint that this car is anything but stock. That’s because the engine is stock – as in Showroom Stock road racing. This class of racing allowed suspension upgrades, but the engine had to be left alone. So, the 1LE upgrades focused more on handling, acceleration, and stopping than outright horsepower.
They didn’t just throw some new shocks and brake rotors on though. This car was well developed. As engineers adjusted one variable such as stopping power, they had to tweak things like fuel delivery. Besides brake and fuel upgrades, the transmission received new gearing and the suspension was firmed up. You can read more about the 1LE package and what all went into it here.
The interior threw some people off and that’s understandable because the 1LE package actually called for the base V6 interior! These cars were stripped down with only the essentials to go, stop, and turn quickly. So, it may not have been what the seller originally thought, but it’s still something very special. Throw in the fact that it’s only covered 27k miles since new and you have quite a find! It’s located in Atlanta, Georgia and you can contact David here via email if interested. The asking price ($12,500) may seem steep, but it’s a whole heck of a lot cheaper than the newly announced 1LE!
These are rare, and perhaps the folks that were bashing David for his last ad (sure, a couple of errors…) can do some research and see exactly what he’s selling.
Exactly Paul. We wanted to give him another chance because this car is a lot more than some of our commenters thought.
I bought a Camaro in 1987 to race the the Firehawk Challenge. It wasn’t built for racing but the GM engineers turned it into a race spec with bigger brakes, discs on the rear, and a blueprinted motor.
I love camaros, posts like this make me happy.
I had a friend who worked at the Corvette plant in 1995, who purchased a very similar car, that was built for highway patrol.
In a BIG survey, the cars that owners said they’d definitely buy another were: #1 Corvette and down to #5 I recall Camaro.
Would be a fun autocross car, maybe even competitive in a CAM class.
One thing is for sure: I’m really glad that the auto manufacturers are still building performance oriented versions of their cars. Beige/vanilla sedans and SUV’s pay the bills, but the limited editions are food for the soul.
Much better listing. More accurate and fair! Good work Jesse and Josh. Best of Luck to David in selling this nice Camaro for a good price and to a good home! New owner should be very happy.
Considering what these cars were….that doesn’t sound like a bad price on this one when you factor in the mileage and condition.
You could probably count on one hand the number of options that were allowed after checking the box for the 1LE.