MORE IMAGES OF THE SPORTECH CAMARO HERE

TWENTY-SOMETHINGS HAD it good at the end of the swinging sixties, and not only because the ‘Make Love Not War’ philosophy was at a high point. Nope, I’m talking about cheap horsepower and cheap oil in an era where the average all-American teen had just one decision to make: Mustang or Camaro?

Four decades on the world’s way more complicated, but you can still drive down the drag in most US cities and make the same call on which Detroit ponycar you’d prefer. Thing is, thanks to the rise of retro, they’re as fashionable as ever.

More remarkable is that neither Ford nor Chevrolet has ever built their affordable sports cars in right-hand-drive, content to service the massive US market rather than bother with the UK or any other Commonwealth country. If anyone wanted a car with a bowtie or a blue oval on the nose with the steering wheel on the right and a V8 under the bonnet, they had to make a plan.

Which is how I come to be behind the wheel of a 2010 Camaro, windows down and blasting along a tree-lined avenue at a speed which would earn me a whole bunch of AARTO points on my licence. On my left, grinning manically, is Chad Wentzel of Sportech, looking a little more lined and grey since we first talked about a story on this car early in 2010.

That’s because it’s taken the best part of a year to build, a gestation period lengthened due to its guinea pig status: according to Chad it’s the first right-hand-drive Camaro in the country and adding to the challenge was the matter of supercharging it before swapping the steering wheel from left to right. You heard right. In standard form the LS2 6.2-litre V8 is rated at an unstressed 315kW and 550Nm, not really enough for a wild ride at Reef altitude. So this bright red machine got a supercharger conversion. More of that later.

The current Camaro tugs at the heartstrings of those of us who remember the original, but getting your hands on an American automotive icon isn’t as easy as it used to be. If you import one it has to remain in your hands for two years, and you can’t get it registered without converting it first.

This car started life as an ‘ordinary’ Camaro Super Sport, but the option package included the RS (Rally Sport) upgrade with the addition of a four-instrument pod ahead of the gearlever (oil pressure, oil temperature, transmission temperature and battery voltage), 20-inch polished aluminium wheels and a few other racy bits.

Sportech lowered the car a further 30 mm with a suspension kit from MTI and then fitted a set of moody matte black 22-inch muthers, shod with 305/30 rubber. Not just any rubber either, but Pirelli’s premium PZero Neros.

The overall result is yummy, even if the current Camaro (it arrived Stateside in 2008, ending a six year hiatus for the Camaro badge) looks like it has been squashed gently in a giant sandwich toaster: it is very flat and wide, with slit-like windows. But it has all the classic styling cues of Camaro generation one, including the hump above the rear wheelarches, steeply raked pillars, and deep-set lights which stare angrily from under the leading edge of the bonnet. Long doors, short overhangs and a nose which disappears into the middle distance complete the picture. 

It takes about 150 man-hours to mirror-image the interior to this degree of finish. First, it’s stripped, and then the brackets and support structure refabricated to support all the underdash hardware in a right-hand-drive layout.A buck is made of the entire facia, using sections of the original which have been cut and reassembled in their new positions. From there a sealed mould is made, into which a plastic resin is squeezed. The final product is sent to New Zealand to have it shrink-wrapped with a soft-touch leatherette skin. On return, the dash goes back in and is fitted with all its instruments and switchgear.

The same cut and mirror-image approach had to be taken with the pedal box, doors and electric seats. With so much electronically controlled, there were a few hiccups along the way, including ABS software which locked the brakes in the ‘on’ position, and over-zealous stability control which lit up the moment it detected the slightest steering movement. All these glitches have been ironed out with remapped software, but there’s a grey hair on Chad’s head for every little developmental bump on that road…

If there are any signs of this from behind the wheel, you’ll be hard-pressed to tell, and ergonomically the only real giveaway is the glovebox lid, with the release handle positioned to the far left and thus hard to reach from the driver’s seat. Adding to the challenge is the fact that many HVAC components have had to be inverted or reversed but recalibrated to work as before in terms of functionality. For example, the venting had to undergo an about face, so that when the driver requests cool air to his face, he gets cool air to his face and when the passenger wants 27 degrees on his toes, that’s what he gets…

As far as mechanicals go, the main change revolves around the steering rack, but fortunately a suitable right-hand-drive item was found in the Chevrolet parts bin. Interestingly, the engine doesn’t need to be removed for the conversion, though with the additional plumbing from the Magnuson blower some under-bonnet origami is needed to fit it all in.

Springs aside, the drivetrain is unchanged and being an SS, has Brembo brakes, a limited-slip diff, and ‘Performance-Tuned’ suspension to quote the Chevrolet.com website. It’s fully-independent nowadays, just in case you were wondering whether there was still a live axle under those tautly-contoured hindquarters. 

With a gazillion newton-metres you only have to allow the clutch pedal to rise ever so slightly and add the tiniest squirt of juice to get the Camaro to trundle off the line. Add more gas and there’s an explosion of sound which is almost alarming – this car has a seriously loud exhaust!

The rate of acceleration is stupendous and I reckon this is a four-second to 100kph car –  without too much effort once off the line. Everything is heavyweight, and the Tremec six-speeder requires a fair amount of muscle, but the throw is short and the gate narrow so it still feels sporty. Clutch bite is sharp and positive and you could no doubt launch this car consistently, with repeatable results irrespective of technique and where you shift gear.

You soon realise why supercharging works so well with big engines, especially at altitude, as the blower makes up for that loss of atmospheric pressure. You retain that immediacy and there’s no delay in getting your message from the pedal to the tarmac. It’s like having the best of both worlds.

It is truly bolt-on too: the kit comes complete with supercharger (in a black crackle finish), belt, air-to-water intercooler, upgraded fuel injectors, and software to get it to run right on our fuel.  

This particular Chevy certainly seems to run cleanly and strongly. A local dyno recorded figures of 406kW and 650Nm, and on their website Magnuson claim official performance figures of an 11.6-second quarter mile at a terminal speed of about 195kph – numbers not to be sneezed at. The brakes are up to it too, as we discovered when an 18-wheeler wandered into our lane, and we had to use every ounce of stopping power, along with ABS intervention.

If anything, it proved in an eyeball-bulging nanosecond how well everything works. Simultaneously scrubbing off speed, changing direction and going down the ’box revealed no vices in the handling. Once our nerves had settled we could explore cornering ability. It feels taut, the progressive springing firming up the ride when pressing on, but in normal driving it is reasonably supple in the way it tackles our pockmarked and rippled roads.

Sated, we trundle back to Sportech HQ. Apart from the domineering exhaust note, it is pretty much a car you could drive every day, and thanks to the right-hand-drive conversion, even ordering a burger and Coke (both supersized of course) at the Golden Arches should pose no problem.