Most of you that are fans of Reeves Callaway probably know him and his company for their high-performance work on Corvettes. However at times they have turned to other vehicles, as witnessed by this extremely re-styled 1993 C-8 Camaro prototype that is listed for sale here on eBay. It’s located in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, was featured in Motor Trend when new as the “World’s Baddest Camaro”, and the buy it now price is $33,000 (although lower offers will be considered).
I’m sure some of you Camaro fans will view this car as an abomination, but I personally feel the modified styling is a great improvement over the original. The car has been babied since new and is showing only 1,135 miles (I wonder how many of those were put on during magazine road tests?)
I can’t see the car being a performance slouch with 404 horsepower out of a 383 cubic inch engine. In addition to it being featured on the cover of Motor Trend, Callaway Cars showed this car numerous times including the 1993 LA Auto Show, the 1994 Chicago Auto Show and the 1994 SEMA Show in Las Vegas. All appropriate documentation is included about the car’s history.
Can you imagine a more early 90’s interior than teal and pink vinyl? Any Spandex in there?
Personally I would have chosen a teal shift knob to match the rest of the interior, but perhaps this blue one is more to your taste?
Other mechanical modifications to the car include massive Brembo brakes, stainless steel headers and exhaust and OZ wheels. This is one of those polarizing cars like my Lister XJS that you either get and love or are repulsed by it. Which way does it make you feel?
love or repulsed …. hmm, I’d have to say intrigued!
Its no sledgehammer vette but definately unique. I like the styling but dissapointed on performance for being a Callaway car. Could have easily accomplished 404 hp out of the standard LT1 versus a 383 with a lowly 404. A friend of mine had a ’94 Z28 with LT1 stroked to 383 running 525 hp. Another guy around town was running a ’96 Mallet enhanced Z28 stroked to 396 cubes. Never got an official output number but it sounded pretty rediculous and smelled pretty good running the good not for street use gas. All in all, like the exterior, interior is too early 90’s for me, needs a bit more grunt from Callaway.
I was a little disappointed in the HP rating, except, if you think about it, this was completed back in 1993-ish, and folks weren’t pushing-out as much HP 25 years ago as they are now…my only question would be—with regard to the other vehicles mentioned with higher HP—WHEN did they do the modifications? Contemporaneous to the vehicle vintage, or sometime later? That is, did someone take a 90’s vintage vehicle and beef it up back in the early-to-mid 90’s…OR…did they take a mid 90’s vehicle—and much later make the HP transformation? My point is, the ability (options) to increase power now is much greater than would be true in 1993…just sayin’…and if these other vehicles were built “back in the day”, then kudo’s to them—but go back and look at how many production vehicles were pumping-out 404 HP in 1993 in particular?
As to the exterior modifications, I actually like them better than the original,
but I probably would not go rush out to buy this car…I would rather find a 1968 or ‘69 Camaro and see what $33K will get me…but this is simply my personal preference.
Finally, the colored stripes on the seats and doors need to go the same way as the shifter knob—ugh!
404 HP was no joke back in the early ’90’s. Remember, the L98 cars from just a year before that had between 240-250 HP, and 300 HP cars were not common. Yes, this was considered to be a semi-exotic tuner car in its day, but no one back then was going to complain about the engine output. I know…I was there.
Yeah. This car is for the ladies
With only 1,135 miles since 1993, someone missed years of fun. To bad.
War never a fan of this body style. That being said…if The General had delivered a trim level car like this from the factory…there’d be songs about it.
I dunno, the non-teal colored shift knob would be a deal-breaker for me.
And no offense, Jamie, but that XJS brings a whole new dimension to the word awkward. Beauty is in the eye of the beer-holder….
No offense taken; if you go back and see my original post on the XJS before I bought it, I made it clear beauty is in the eye of the beholder — it’s beautiful to me and that’s all that matters, right? And that’s without a beer!
I owned an XJS for a while, and I thought it was beautiful to look at & performed well, I loved the car but I was scared to death to take it in for any sort of service, so I sold it for the first reasonable offer.
You can see the original shift knob sitting in the cup holder, so easy replacement.
A prime candidate for a Radwood (80’s/90’s themed) car show. With that rad interior treatment I’d it’s a contender for “Best in Show”.
http://www.radwood.co
I want to like it.. But …The look… the so-so performance… the price…
I had a 4th Gen – 02 Camaro SS (LS1) with bolt ons and made similar power. Arguably 98-02 look like a catfish but I think I prefer that to this …that looks like a… drunk shark? In spandex….?
The only homo sapiens that should be wearing spandex in this car would have to be an age appropriate human of the female gender with the inate physical attributes that would justify wearing of a materiel that would make the features sought to be seen in the best light. (This message has been approved by the National Board of Inoffensive Comment review.)
Then I could forgive the interior.
Had The General produced this design instead ,Camaro wouldn’t have had to take a sabbatical so we could forget the ugly hodgepodge that generation had become.
If original Miami Vice was made in the 90s this might have been in it
Qvale coupe and a Firebird had a love child.
I was a fan of this generation Camaro, but this thing is fugly. The power was great for 25 years ago however.
With my comment about power output, is it good for the day? yes, considering this puts it in ZR1 territory. However, as stated by some of you looking at this as production numbers. Callaway is an aftermarket provider which is why I would expect better performance. Also for those who didn’t notice it, the stock shift knob is in the cup holder.
Nice catch on the shifter knob. Price just went up! For me, I like it. 400hp is nothing to sneeze at, even today. You start putting 5-600hp in that motor and drivability and reliability go down. If I didn’t have to wear spandex (unless I can wear it under my clothes!), I’d drive it in a heartbeat. And you won’t be one of the 50 1st gen Camaros at the car shows. Can’t see this going down in value either.
Wow, I thought that I would be the only one to notice the shift knob in the cupholder. I had a ’99 6 speed and that was the knob it came with.
Being a Chevrolet dealer about 20 mins away from Callaway we had a few of these Camaro’s. I still have pictures of the cars we had, sales brochures and price lists. They were fast but weren’t the fast sellers. Quite a car though.