Friends, the Chevrolet Camaro is dead. But it’s not forgotten. That will never happen so long as we have instant access to 20 gazillion videos on YouTube, more than a few of which are devoted to the Camaro. Many of these clips focus on the fifth- and sixth-gen cars, but to pay proper respect to Chevrolet’s war horse, we turn to the greatest Camaro of them all.
The Camaro IROC-Z debuted for the 1985 model year, bringing more power, more bling, and bigger Z branding to the lineup. We mean that last part literally, as a Camaro with bold IROC-Z decals on the doors was every bit a bragging point in the ’80s car scene as chrome 5.0 badges on a Ford Mustang. And this old Motorweek review shared by latemodelracer78 on YouTube opens with the Z in the classic ’80s shade of Light Yellow. Our mullets are growing just thinking about it.
There’s an actual racing connection here, too. The International Race of Champions – yes, IROC – was a series based in North America that put drivers from multiple motorsport genres into identically prepared cars. Through the 1980s that was the Chevy Camaro, and as such, the street-based IROC-Z got tweaks to the suspension, bigger wheels and tires, and some extra power under the hood. For its 1985 debut, that took the form of an optional 5.0-liter tuned-port injection V8 making 215 horsepower.
What was that like for a performance enthusiast in 1985? Motorweek speaks highly of the Camaro’s “neck-snapping” acceleration, reaching 60 mph in 7.1 seconds and covering the quarter-mile in 14.8 seconds at 90 mph. Considering many passenger cars of the day struggled to reach 90 mph at all, that wasn’t too shabby.
By the end of the IROC-Z’s run in 1990, power would increase to 245 hp from a 5.7-liter V8. Manual transmissions were available on lower-output 5.0 engines, but the edgy, wedge styling and bold IROC-Z branding remained the same. The deal between Chevrolet and IROC ended, and the racing series itself would eventually fold in 2006. But for a few glorious years, we had the Camaro IROC-Z. May it live forever.