THE NEW CAMARO 1LE WILL EAT THE SHELBY GT350 FOR BREAKFAST!

Chevrolet unveiled its new Camaro 1LE at the Chicago Auto Show last week, and already it’s making some pretty bold claims about the 1LE’s performance chops. Chevrolet says it will straight up outperform the Ford Mustang Shelby GT350. Consider the gauntlet thrown.

 According to GM Authority, Camaro engineer engineer Al Oppenheiser stated that the car was benchmarked against the hardcore Shelby GT350 during testing. That’s why he’s confident that the Camaro is the faster of the two.

“Our goal is to up the game with our competitor, just like they upped the game with the GT350,” said Oppenheiser. “Everyone had to expect we would punch back. I will tell you this car is three seconds faster than the previous 1LE. Your readers can go out and make their own conclusions.”

If they’ve really managed to pull this off, then it will be quite a feat. The GT350 is a whole separate variant of the Mustang designed for performance, but the 1LE is only a performance package. The Camaro 1LE also has only 455 horsepower versus the GT350′s 526 horsepower, but Chevy believes the car is still capable of showing up the Mustang.