Next year sees Chevrolet celebrating the 50-year anniversary of the original COPO Camaro. Naturally, Chevy intends to celebrate the occasion and has not one, but two models to mark the date.
We’ve already covered the first, a classic quarter-mile pony car. The other is a little different. It’s still a Camaro, and it’s still built for 1320 feet at a time, but it doesn’t have an engine…
Chevrolet calls it the eCOPO, and that should be a bit of a clue. It’s fully electric, with two motors delivering power to the rear live axle through the “race-prepped” automatic transmission. It’s dressed to impress, and with more than 520kW (that’s 700hp+ to the rest of us) and 600lbft of torque, it means business. Chevy reckons the eCOPO can run the quarter mile in about nine seconds.
If that sounds impressive, consider this: it’s still undergoing tests. Potentially that means Chevrolet could deliver an eight second, all-electric drag monster.
Power comes from an 800V battery pack divided into four modules. Two occupy the space where the rear seats would be, while a second pair sits in the trunk. That gives the eCOPO a 44:56 weight bias, so there’s plenty of traction for a full-bore launch.
GM’s head of motorsports, Russ O’Blenes, teased the chances of offering electric crate motors in future.
“The possibilities are intriguing and suggest a whole new world for racers. Chevrolet pioneered the concept of the high-performance crate engine right around the time the original COPO Camaro models were created, and the eCOPO project points to a future that could include electric crate motors for racing, or even your street rod. We’re not there yet, but it’s something we’re exploring.”
This may be a concept, but who knows what it holds for the future? Color us intrigued!
