Every New Year’s, many of us make goals or commitments to do things differently in our lives, but it’s rare that any of us actually stick to our guns and see them through—or even change a single thing. In fact, we are willing to bet that you don’t really even remember what you were doing last New Year’s Eve. But Chris Bonnell remembers his 2012 New Year’s Eve like it was yesterday.
That’s because it was the day he decide to trade in his 2011 V6-powered Camaro for its V8-toting big brother—even if it was just a year older. Chris had never even test drove a V8 model until he sat behind the wheel of his soon-to-be ride after what he thought would be a quick drop by the dealership.
“While I was there, the dealer was like, ‘oh, you want to take it for a spin?’” Chris said. “I ended up purchasing it two days later on New Year’s Eve.”
If we could, we would go back in time and shake that sly dealer’s hand for motivating Chris to jump up to a 2SS, inadvertently bringing us one of the best looking fifth-gens we’ve ever laid eyes on.
After Chris got the car home, he couldn’t help but start adding bolt-ons to squeeze a few more ponies out of the L99. He started with the basics, which included a set of Kooks 1 7/8-inch primary long tube headers that feed into a Borla Attack 3-inch exhaust system. A Cold Air Inductions intake funnels fresh atmosphere to a CNC ported and polished V-Max throttle body. The car then received a custom tune by Rob Kats, a personal friend of Chris’.
“I knew that the V8 was just going to snowball from the get go,” Chris joked.
But as Chris began cleaning up everything under the hood, his fascination with the car quickly moved to its exterior. However, Chris tells us that he didn’t want to do what everyone else around him was doing— which was slap a Transformers badge on it and call it a day. He wanted it to stand out in every possible way.
“I wanted it to be my own unique version of something that I thought was badass and that’s what I built,” Chris said.
Chris started by pursuing the pages of camaro5.com, gaining insight into what types of mods he really liked and others that he’d just as soon avoid. Once he had a good idea of what he wanted the car to ultimately look like, he set to work making it happen.
The car owes its stance to a set of Eibach Pro-Kit lowering springs that drop the car 1.5 inches all the way around. 20-inch Forgestar F14s, in black graphite, wrapped in Nitto Enzos— 275/40R20 up front and 295/35R20 out back— help keep the Camaro grounded.
The binders are the factory Brembo four-piston calipers, but the stock rotors were ditched in favor of a set of R1 Concepts slotted and drilled units. The pads were also replaced with a set of their Spectrum 3000 semi-metallics to help bring a little whoa to the Camaro’s go.
An adjustable carbon fiber front splitter from APR Performance gives the fifth-gen an aggressive look and allows Chris to make changes to the car’s downforce on the fly. The original front facia was ash canned in favor of a ZL1 setup— but you may notice this one looks a little different than your average conversion. That’s because it has been fitted with a set of ACS Composite bumper ports— giving it a subtly unique look.
“I’ve had a lot of people ask me if it is the ZL1 bumper or something completely custom,” Chris said. “It really throws people off because it’s not typically something you see on a lot of the ZL1s.”
To add to the unique look, Chris added a Z Force hood and rear wing from MPD1 Motorsports. The hood is based on the fifth-gen Z/28 concept car and features a functional hood scoop and aggressive styling. The quarter panel vents are from 3D Carbon and were purchase through Ohio Speed—who sponsors the car.
The side skirts and rear defuser are factory GM parts and really blend well with the rest of the car. The interior of the car is wrapped in a design that Chris created using Photoshop. The shifter was swapped to pistol-grip style shifter and all of the accent lighting has been swapped for red LEDs. The car retains it’s factory Inferno Orange Metallic hue— though Chris said he frequently gets asked if it is a custom color.
And if it seems like you’ve seen Chris’ car, or the symbol on it, around a lot lately, there is a reason for it. Not only is the car extremely popular with his substantial social media following, you may also recognize the Vengeance Graphix logo in the bottom of all of these pictures. That’s because Chris is the owner, and you may have seen his renderings floating around the interwebs.
“I basically started on Camaro5 just doing renderings for people who wanted to see how different wheels or other parts would look on their car,” Chris said. “From there, I just learned the whole rendering process and how to turn people’s cars into works of art.”
While Chris’ artistic renderings started with humble beginnings on the pages of Camaro5, it has blossomed into a thriving side business. He’s willing to create renderings for anyone, as long as they have a high resolution image of their car and an idea of what they want the final product to look like.
Chris says he has done everything from just rendering images to creating show boards and custom displays for people entering their cars in shows.
“I try to put enough work into them that they become another piece of art for the owner to display,” Chris said. “Not only is it great for taking to shows, but you can hang everything up around the garage or really display it anywhere you want after it’s all put together.”
Not only will Chris make you a display for your show car, you can even order Pokemon-style trading cards with your car’s rendering printed on them— a hobby that we would be vastly more interested in than the actual game. Gotta’ catch ‘em all.
If you’re interested in having Vengeance Graphix do something for your car, you can contact Chris through his Instagram account (@the_orange_inferno) or on his Facebook page.