Imagine if it had no speakers.
The 2014 Chevrolet Camaro Z/28 has set a blistering lap time at the benchmark Nurburgring Nordschleife race track.
The stripped down muscle car dispensed of the 154-turn, 12.9-mile-long circuit through Germany’s Eifel mountains in 7:37.47, putting it ahead of a list of notable exotic sports cars that includes the $100,000 Porsche 911 Carerra S, $240,000 Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera and $400,000 Lexus LFA, not to mention the 556 hp Camaro ZL1 at 7:41.
And the day the Z/28 was there, it was raining.
To date, the Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 and the Dodge/SRT Viper are the only American cars to set faster marks. Chevy says the Z/28 completed a total of more than 1,000 miles at the track, never needing more than 8 mins to complete a lap despite running into heavy traffic at times.
The current production car record at the track was set last month by the $845,000 Porsche 918 Spyder, which made it around in a scant 6:57, thanks to its 887 hp hybrid powertrain, 7-speed automatic transmission and all-wheel-drive.
The Z/28 is a bit more old-school than that, with a 505 hp 7.0-liter V8 sending power to the rear wheels through a six-speed stick, although its fade-free carbon ceramic brakes do bring some extra technology to the game.
The key to its performance, however, is a reengineering and weight saving program that stiffens its chassis, strips it of heavy sound deadening material, uses thinner glass on the rear window, puts air conditioning on the options list and eliminates all but one speaker for the audio system, which is required by law to provide a door chime.
Pricing has not been announced, but the Z/28 is set to go on sale early in 2014.