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With the new Camaro, General Motors has managed to build a truly worldwide race car. Sure, selling the Camaro in Europe means making some silly changes to the taillights and side view mirrors, but other than that, those socialist pansies in Europe get the same awesome Camaro that we here in the States enjoy.
Naturally, that means a few Old Worlders will be campaigning their Camaros in various racing series. According to the blog of Jon Sibal, Yaco Motorsports is prepping a Camaro GT3 racer for the 2012 racing season, and it both looks and sounds freakin’ mean.
Yaco will be in good company with their Camaro, as Pfadt Race Engineering also campaigned a Camaro in the European GT3 series last year. Yaco partnered with Sareni Engineering to build an FIA-spec racing Camaro, and will also be joined by Belgium’s Fastforward Motorsport. This meant stripping the Camaro of all the unnecessary bits, adding a whole bunch of safety features, and racing the hell out of it.
GT3 rules also allow for serious modifications, and the Yaco Camaro boasts a very low and mean-looking front fascia. This picture came from the blog of Keita Sawa, the 2011 Porsche Carrera Cup Asia Champion from 2011, and we’d hate to see that ugly mug in our rearview. Fastforward’s front fascia isn’t quite as aggressive, but from the sounds of this brief video, it’s just as mean.
Meanwhile, Sareni Engineering’s GT3 Camaros (pictured above) have been built with help from Hans Reiter, well known for his work with championship-winning Lamborghinis. This pair of Camaros use massive 7.9 liter V8s to produce 650 horsepower and 627 ft-lbs of torque, giving them lap times similar to a Lamborghini Gallardo. Sareni set out to produce not just a fast car, but a cost efficient one, and while the $253,000 price tag may seem high, we are talking about a full-blown race car here, complete with custom body parts, a huge engine, roll cage, world class brakes, and everything else needed to bring new racers into the fold. So, if you’ve got a quarter-million dollars burning a hole in your pocket, now might be a good time to make a move.
We’ll be watching the European GT3 series to see just how well these Camaros do against those snooty European socialists driving their Bimmers and Porsches.
