Small Wonder

Hot Rod magazine devoted four pages of its March 1970 issue to introducing its readers to the 1970 Camaro.

- Drew Hardin

Two of those were a review of the car overall by Feature Editor Steve Kelly, while the second two were an overview of the new LT-1 V-8 written by Associate Editor John Dianna.

Dianna was impressed;

Kelly wasn’t. Kelly, in fact, sounded downright cranky, probably because the test car he was given “had more than a usual number of high-speed miles” as it “came directly from an automotive writers’ ‘ride-and-drive’ preview (you know, where we all go out and lay waste to everyday traffic-induced inhibitions, and one or two sets of brakes).” As such, the LT-1 in his car was not the “wailer” it should have been.

“The new Z28 should run in the low-14-second region right out of the box, or maybe better,” Kelly wrote. “But this one didn’t.” His best quarter-mile e.t. was 14.93 seconds at 97 mph.

“A close-ratio four-speed and a good Hurst shifter were manipulated at 6,200 rpm,” Kelly wrote. “We tried power-shifting at 7,000 rpm, and the result was slower times and lower speeds. The engine is good for more than seven grand, but torque drops off over 6,500, diminishing the need for going past that point.” The factory, by the way, rated the LT-1 in the Camaro as producing 360 hp at 6,000 rpm and 380 lb-ft of peak torque at 4,000. (In the Corvette that year the engine was rated at 370 hp and the same amount of torque.)