Photo: wb.artist20/Instagram
Get your mullets all nice and permed because we are going back to the 1980s to look at a legend. That's right, it's the Chevy Camaro IROC-Z, that one muscle car that thought it was a Corvette.
Whenever you see an old muscle car from the '80s, you usually just want to go up and say: "shouldn't you be rusted already," or "100 horsepower isn't enough for a pony." But the IROC-Z has always been cool because it wins hard in the styling department.
The IROC made its debut in 1985 as an optional package for the Z28 Camaro but three years later, it replaced the Z28 completely. It was themed after the world of racing, as suggested by its name, which is short for the International Race of Champions. It was a one-make, all-star series that lasted until the 2006 season.
The IROC was the top trim of the Camaro at the time. Thanks to several suspension upgrades, it could take a corner pretty well for an F-Body car. Chevy used this platform right up until the early 2000s.
The 3rd-gen Camaro was arguably cool in its era. It was bigger than the Fox Body and Chevy was really getting good with its small-block injection tech right. With the automatic, this thing was making all the power you'd need to do burnouts all day and still be comfortable.
The front end was way simpler than a second-gen Camaro. You just had the wedge shape that was popular at the time, simple lines, and square headlights. This rendering by wb.artist20 tries to capture that spirit and put it in a modern context. You've got some square edges, combined with bigger modern wheels and some LED lights.
The Camaro styling department has arguably lost its touch, cranking out worse and worse front ends with each model year. Maybe going back about 35 years in time for inspiration wouldn't be such a bad thing.
Update: Here is the rear view of the same modernized Camaro IROC-Z. We think it's even cooler than the front.
The IROC made its debut in 1985 as an optional package for the Z28 Camaro but three years later, it replaced the Z28 completely. It was themed after the world of racing, as suggested by its name, which is short for the International Race of Champions. It was a one-make, all-star series that lasted until the 2006 season.
The IROC was the top trim of the Camaro at the time. Thanks to several suspension upgrades, it could take a corner pretty well for an F-Body car. Chevy used this platform right up until the early 2000s.
The 3rd-gen Camaro was arguably cool in its era. It was bigger than the Fox Body and Chevy was really getting good with its small-block injection tech right. With the automatic, this thing was making all the power you'd need to do burnouts all day and still be comfortable.
The front end was way simpler than a second-gen Camaro. You just had the wedge shape that was popular at the time, simple lines, and square headlights. This rendering by wb.artist20 tries to capture that spirit and put it in a modern context. You've got some square edges, combined with bigger modern wheels and some LED lights.
The Camaro styling department has arguably lost its touch, cranking out worse and worse front ends with each model year. Maybe going back about 35 years in time for inspiration wouldn't be such a bad thing.
Update: Here is the rear view of the same modernized Camaro IROC-Z. We think it's even cooler than the front.
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