Artisan Camaro SA-600: Twin Turbos!

Chevy's new muscle-car competitor, the Camaro, has been receiving a lot of attention lately. With svelte retro looks, a refined fully-independent chassis, and a rather neat interior - as well as gobs of V8 horsepower and a rather impressive standard V6 - it's shaping up to be a much-needed hit for the ailing General Motors corporation.

Many aftermarket firms have already dipped their toe into the tuning side of things for the Camaro, and the latest is Artisan Performance.  They've just introduced the SA-600, which is intended to be a pre-made turnkey tuner hotrod version of the Camaro, and it's got gobs of horsepower.  Obviously.

The primary modification is the use of twin rear-mounted GTK350 ball-bearing turbochargers, similar to the system pioneered by STS (Squire Turbo Systems) and codeveloped with turbocharging experts turbochargers.com.  There's also a massive bumper-stuffing front mounted intercooler, a new exhaust system, and a recalibrated ECU to deal with all that extra atmosphere.  In combination with the SS's 6.2L LS3 pushrod V8, this equates to a most adequate 600bhp, or 174 more than the stock 6-speed Camaro SS puts out.

Of course, they've gone to great lengths to make it looks a bit more aggressive.  The most noticeable difference are the wide, flared-out fenders - an inch and a half in the front and three inches  in the rear wider than stock, respectively - which cover huge 21" and 22" iForged alloy wheels.  There's also an integrated brake duct in the rear fenders, which is quite fetching.  Under those massive iForged hoops sit equally massive 14" SSBC rotors with floating calipers, to ensure those 600 horsepower stay under control.  Probably wise.

Other goodies include a deep front lip, side skirts, a rear diffuser, and a few other baubles and bolt-ons round out the package.  The SA-600 is expected to go on sale this June with a relatively reasonable pricetag of $69,000, which is still less than the 505bhp Corvette Z06.  While I'm not the biggest fan of rear-mounted turbos (lots of plumbing usually equals lots of lag, plus they're far too exposed to the elements for my tastes) 600bhp for less than 70k sounds like a good deal.  Get in line.