2017 Camaro ZL1 Nurburgring Time Disappears

Earlier this year, the Camaro team headed to Germany with a pair of new 2017 Camaro ZL1 coupes and a mystery car which many believe to be the next generation Camaro Z28 (the one that crashed hard on camera). We know for a fact that Chief Engineer Al Oppenheiser and the Camaro team were testing the new ZL1 coupes at the Nürburgring because Mr. Oppenheiser posted a picture on social media when the crew was finishing up, but we never got any word from the company as to what kind of lap times were laid down.

The fact that we know that the 2017 Camaro ZL1 was being tested at the Nürburgring created a tremendous amount of discussion online pertaining to possible lap times, so when a fairly impressive lap time for the new supercharged Camaro appeared on Wikipedia – the American performance car world got very excited. Even though there was no word from GM and no real information on the alleged 7:23 lap, that tidbit of information was enough to stoke up the discussions and some believed that the Wikipedia reference would be followed by an official announcement from the automaker.

Unfortunately, this discussion has gone the other way, with the Camaro ZL1 lap time disappearing from the Wikipedia page of the top Nürburgring lap times.

No More 7:23 Camaro ZL1 Time
When the alleged lap time for the 2017 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 popped up earlier this month, our friends at Camaro News were the first to notice. Wikipedia is a fully user generation information website, but the Nürburgring Lap Times page is generally accurate, with sources and information on each line item helping to verify the legitimacy of the records.

Unfortunately, the 7:23 lap time for the 2017 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 didn’t have any source or information, so many believed that some random person just made up a lap time and posted it without any supporting information. Since there was no supporting information, it should come as no surprise that the 7:23 Camaro ZL1 lap time has been removed from the Wikipedia list.

This leaves us wondering if the 7:23 Camaro ZL1 lap was removed from Wikipedia because it was incorrect – or was it removed because General Motors didn’t want it posted just yet?

Camaro Nürburgring Time – Fake or Leaked
When the 2017 Camaro ZL1 lap time of 7:23 showed up online without any official word from General Motors and without any supporting information, many people assumed that it was fake. Literally anyone could have just dreamed up a 7:23 lap time and posted it to Wikipedia, so the time very well could have been 100% fake.

The other solution is that the person who posted that time did so because they knew that the 2017 Camaro ZL1 made is around the famed German road course in just 7 minutes and 23 seconds. When General Motors was at the Nurburgring test the new Camaro ZL1, they surely kept their lap times quiet, but there were surely plenty of people on hand – both with the Camaro team and those who were at the track for some other reason – who could have caught wind of the Camaro’s lap time. Say that some random person happened to hear or see the results of the Camaro ZL1 test session and, in not knowing what else to do with that information, he or she posted it to Wikipedia. Were that to be the case, the lack of a source would have surely doomed the information to being erased – especially if GM didn’t want that information posted publicly.

Also, there is a sort of conspiracy theory approach – that someone from General Motors posted the 7:23 Camaro ZL1 lap time just to get everyone talking about it, only to erase it a short time later. If that is the case, that lap time might be accurate, which we will likely find out in the future when GM rolls out the official results of their Nürburgring testing with the new Camaro ZL1.

In any case, it should only be a matter of time before General Motors offers up the official lap time record for the new Camaro ZL1, likely with video as proof. In the meantime, we are all left speculating and wondering.