Would You Buy a Four-Cylinder 6th-Gen Camaro?

With the recent news that the 2 liter turbo four in the Cadillac ATS will be uprated to 295 pound-feet of torque (horsepower stays at a peak of 272), we were once again inspired to ask ourselves if we could envision a future Camaro with a four-banger as a desirable thing.

It’s already known that the next-gen Camaro will share the Alpha platform with the current ATS, even being built alongside it in the same plant, so it’s not a huge stretch of the imagination to say that the 2.0T powerplant may be on the 6th-gen option list. The last time a four was available in a Camaro was the 3rd-gen cars, which were saddled with the Iron Duke 2.5L from 1982 to 1985. With a whopping 90 or so horsepower, owners of these cars could enjoy air conditioning and forward movement, but not simultaneously.

Of course, the LTG turbo in the ATS is a world apart from the Iron Duke, and at 136 horsepower per liter, it is among the world’s most “power-dense” production engines. In fact, the 2.0T is rated almost 30 horsepower higher than the best 350 TPI V8 3rd-gen you could buy. Torque is the only metric in which the third-gen V8 wins out, with 340 pound-feet to the 2.0T’s 295. The LTG is even a match in horsepower for the LT1 found in early 4th-gen F-bodies, so the idea isn’t all that far-fetched that it might make its way into the 6th-gen Camaro as a performance option.

With the ATS tipping the scales at between 3,300-3,475 pounds, compared to 3,750 for the current 5th-gen Camaro, the Alpha-based 6th-gen might actually be the nimble, slimmed-down Camaro many have hoped for. But would you be able to get past having half the usual number of cylinders under the hood of your performance car?