Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 Visits Inside Line After 7:41 Nurburgring Lap

Just the Facts:

• A Camaro ZL prototype reportedly ran a 7:41.27 lap on the Nurburgring Nordschleife.
• General Motors Engineer Aaron Link was the driver; he made 40 laps in three days.
• GM's Mark Reuss drove the prototype to Inside Line's photography studio this week.

MARINA DEL REY, California — Hours after announcing the 2012 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 lapped the Nurburgring Nordschleife in 7:41.27, General Motors officials pulled up at Inside Line's Los Angeles photography studio on Wednesday in the very same ZL1 prototype. Mark Reuss, president of GM North America, was driving.

Equipped with a full cage and still wearing partial camouflage, the Camaro had genuine-looking grime, apparently residue from two weeks of testing in Germany. Reuss told Inside Line that one of the automaker's top engineers, Aaron Link, made 40 laps of the 12.9-mile course in the car over three days. During his lap sessions, he worked out the parameters for the second most aggressive of the ZL1's five Performance Traction Management driving modes, which govern the behavior of the stability control, electric power steering and adaptive magnetic dampers. Said mode will be called Full Race; it's one step below disabling the stability control entirely.

The car's supercharged, 6.2-liter LSA V8 was reportedly running in stock tune during the timed lap. In the ZL1, this engine is rated at 580 horsepower and 556 pound-feet of torque, making it the most powerful Camaro ever. Predictably, the prototype has the Tremec TR-6060 "MG9" six-speed manual gearbox, rather than the optional six-speed automatic transmission.

Reuss drew our attention to the Camaro ZL1's Goodyear Eagle F1 Supercar G:2 summer tires, sized P285/35ZR20 in front and P305/35ZR20 in the rear. "This isn't a cup tire," he said. "This tire has some tread to it." He told us it was used throughout the lap sessions.

Later in the studio visit, Reuss spoke about future plans for the Camaro line.

"The next generation of these cars needs to be something that's quite different," he said. "More mass-efficient and certainly different powertrains. We won't change the car's DNA, but it will represent something quite different."

This quest for greater efficiency will likely result in the use of six-cylinders and forced induction in place of V8s in cars like the Camaro, but Reuss emphasized that GM probably won't go that route with the Silverado and Sierra half-ton trucks.

"Taking cylinders out and boosting it is one approach," he said, "but there are a lot of other approaches on an electrification basis that may be more compelling and I'm not sure they're full-blown hybrids, either."

Inside Line says: We sure do like the sound of that blown V8.