1987 Firebird-Camaro Comparison Test, AUTOMOBILE Magazine, May 1987

"There are four cars. They roar down the mountain. Their shapes look dramatic through the trees. Their exhausts below, and the sound booms across the canyon. It is the thunder of V8 engines at full cry. When they draw close, the sight and sound together seize your soul. These are fast cars.

They have more than brute performance in common. They are all made by General Motors – by Chevrolet and Pontiac - and they are here because we want to know which of these classic American muscle cars is the fastest and which is the best to drive. Perhaps on of them will win in both categories. Of the Chevrolets, will it be the 5.0-liter Camaro IROC-Z or the 5.7 IROC-Z? Of the Pontiacs, will it be the Firebird Formula or the Trans Am GTA? Which of the four will we like most of all? The time and the miles will tell; the miles will include many laps of Willow Springs International Raceway, as well as the long loops around the roads of this pleasing fold of the Sierra Nevada.

Although they share so much – basic styling, platforms, engine blocks, suspension components, and transmissions – the Camaro and Firebird F-cars take different routes through final design and development. Each engineering team knows that a Camaro buyer has listed a Firebird as his second choice, and that a Firebird man has finally decided it suits him better than a Camaro. Mostly, a Mustang will have been third choice for both. So this is a family feud, with sales and glory as the prize.

Chevrolet’s chief engineer, Fred Schaafsma, says: “We started from the same base and we’re both aimed at performance buffs — but Chevrolet’s goal was to make the Z28 the best-handling car in its class. Through our IROC racing program, it has evolved to a high level, and we believe we’ve achieved our goal. "There’s a great deal of tuning", Wassel says. "It’s much bigger and wealthier and it has too much advertising clout. We had to develop Firebirds that give older and more discerning enthusiasts the things they want other than pure performance: more tasteful styling, more compliant suspensions, better cabin comfort, and convenience. And with the ‘87 models, our share of F-car sales has risen again, from 35 to 40 percent."

One model in particular is helping: the Firebird Formula. A base Firebird in which the performance components from the Trans Am and the GTA are either standard or available as options, the Formula attacks the crucial $12,000 to $14,000 segment where, Pontiac suddenly realized two years ago, it didn’t have a Fire-bird with fight.

The Formula’s standard engine is the four-barrel carburetor, 5.0-liter V-8 giving 165 bhp. But you can option in the tuned port injection (TPI) 5.0-liter that delivers 205 bhp, or the TPI 5.7-liter hauler. The latter is based on the Corvette’s V-8 and is now an available option in the Camaro IROC-Z and standard in the Firebird Trans Am GTA. Thus, the Firebird Formula brings the most powerful V-8s further down the range than is possible in the Camaro lineup. There’s another strong string to its bow too: the W56 high-performance suspension kit that includes gas-filled shock absorbers, larger anti-roll bars, and quicker steering. Massive P245/50VR-16 radials on eight-inch-wide cast alloy wheels are also part of the package.

To the retail price of $10,773 for the base Firebird, the Formula pack-age delivering the suspension adds $1071 and the desirable 5.0-liter TPI V-8 another $745, making a total of $12,589. A further $179 for four-wheel disc brakes isn’t a bad investment either. "The Formula takes us back to our roots," says Lou Wassel. "We’re delivering the most performance we can for the least money. Remember, though, that it’s happening within the envelope of Pontiac putting more compliance into its suspensions than Chevrolet, and that its versions of the V-8s deliver a little less power.

Just as the Formula puts punch into the bottom end of the Firebird lineup, the GTA option for the Trans Am lifts the top end. The package adds the 5.7-liter injected engine (delivering 210 bhp) and MXO four-speed automatic transmission, the WS6 suspension, big tires on eight-inch-wide lace-pattern wheels, an oil cooler, four-wheel discs, a limited-slip diff, and niceties like Pontiac’s new articulated seats, all for $2700 over the Trans Am’s sticker of $13,673. Another package providing things like air conditioning, tilt wheel, cruise control, and central locking lifts the total for a well-equipped GTA to $18,331. Pontiac sees this sort of price helping to pull the Trans Am’s image up and away from its predecessors. Gone indeed are the "screaming chicken" decals of unlamented memory. The GTA body is all one color and although, in Pontiac’s quest to win more affluent customers, it is more tasteful.... that jutting cow-catcher chin is hardly discreet.

Against these Pontiac maneuvers stand the old faithful Camaros, mak-ing no bones about being unadulterated muscle cars. The styling of the Z28 and the IROC-Z is bold, beefy, and blatant. Their noses are deeper than the needle-like Firebird’s and incorporate big air intakes that have more than just visual significance. The Camaro’s nose accommodates bigger and more efficient intakes for the V-8’s injection systems than does the lower, enclosed snout of the Pontiac. The result: the Camaro’s TPI 5.0-liter has 215 bhp against the Firebird’s 205 (although the Pontiac holds a 35 pounds-feet torque advantage), and the IROC-Z’s 5.7-liter delivers 225 bhp compared with the GTA’s 210. Heavier components like their pop-up headlights, bigger rear spoilers, and more complex fascias also make the Firebirds weigh more. So, without even turning a wheel, the Camaros, spec for spec, have a performance advantage.

And that’s the way it stays on the road. In acceleration against the clock, the IROC-Z running the TPI 5.0-liter with the five-speed gearbox holds the edge on the Firebird For-mula with the same drivetrain. The same goes for the 5.7-liter IROC-Z and GTA, both running the four-speed automatic because the Corvette four-plus-three overdrive manual is not available (for cost, fit, and supply reasons) and no other GM manual can take the torque. A new five-speed for the big-engined Camaro is underway, and Pontiac reckons it will fight hard to get it for the Firebird.

The performance differences are not big enough to matter that much. All of these cars have enough performance to set your pulse racing. The engines fire with a lusty, soul-stirring burble. You push the throttle and blast away with the smack in the back that only big-torque V-8s like these provide. You need to watch it if the road is damp or icy; these tails wag fast and furiously.

But you do notice a difference in performance characteristics from make to make. Slide over from the Firebird Formula to the IROC-Z; the Camaro’s 5.0-liter V-8 feels a touch livelier, a shade sharper. And the 5.7-liter IROC-Z duly feels like a gutsier beast than the GTA. You know you’re in the big mother of the bunch in the large-engined IROC. It’s here that the different traits of the cars start to form, the element that make drivers prefer one to an other, the things, well beyond styling, that make buyers who drive both marques ultimately opt for one rather than the other.

Although the more powerful Camaro TPI 5.0-liter feels a little keener than its Pontiac contemporary the two form a natural pair against the 5.7-liter engines. Frankly, these are the nicest, partly because they’re sweeter and lighter-feeling, and partly because they run with five-speed manuals that make the driving much more enjoyable than do the automatics you must have with the bigger V 8s. The sheer grunt of the 5.7s is fun, but those cars don’t have quite the aesthetic, sporting appeal of the smaller-engined machines.

The little GM V-8s don’t seem to rev quite as swiftly as the Ford Mustang’s 5.0-liter V-8, but their appeal is strong enough. They respond powerfully from low revs, they run cleanly through the midrange, and they will thrust on satisfyingly to the 5500 redline. On the road, opening them up from around 3500 rpm in second or third when you’re hitting the apex of a good bend is just plain glorious. You fairly pelt out, perhaps with the tail just starting to edge into oversteer. This is classic muscle-car motoring, and these cars do it well.

But our team still prefers the nature of the smaller engines and their five-speed boxes, even though (despite their automatics) the big guns still rule the roost for sheer pace. On the track, the 5.7-liter IROC-Z proves to be the quickest, turning laps consistently a few tenths of a second under the Pontiac GTA, which in turn shades the 5.0 IROC-Z. All of the margins are slim; the fourth-place Firebird Formula is still within a second of the big IROC-Z.

On the road, where the drivers in the smaller IROC-Z and Firebird Formula might be driving harder and having more fun, the boys in the bigger cars only have to summon the grunt and they’re back in the game. In the words of our California correspondent, Michael Jordan, “You can float into the corners, act like a putz, then stand on the steam and still keep up.”

The weight of the bigger-engined cars makes them feel less wieldy, but the automatic transmissions are the real spoilsports. Upshifts are not great, downshifts are so harsh that they can upset the rear wheels’ grip, and the shift selector is diabolical. With the overdrive fourth, you want and need to use third to maintain both control and performance on a winding road. There are times when you would like second, too, but the selector is so crude and awkward that you’re reluctant to reach for it. Chevrolet and Pontiac like to think they are making serious driver’s cars. Automatics can enter that scenario well enough — witness the exquisite Mercedes-Benz shift, or the clever Jaguar J-gate — but this unsympathetic arrangement spits in the driver’s eye and should be axed, whether or not the new big-torque five-speed comes to the rescue.

The five-speed Borg-Warner gear-box on the 5.0-liter cars does a pretty good job on the whole, save for the fact that the shift lever comes a little too far rearward in the second and fourth slots, and incorrect tensioning allows wrong-gating from fourth to fifth when you’d like third. But the aspect that most influ-ences the cars’ characters is their suspension. From the same basic components, the two engineering teams have wrought different results — as Trant Jarman explains in the accompanying article — and their achievements are considerable. On the track, the high roadholding level and handling quality of the IROC-Z Camaro and the WS6 Firebird are swiftly, impressively revealed. You can run all of these cars into wicked bends and feel them hanging on with all the composure in the world. They turn in well and steer accurately. They maintain a fine, stable balance, and backing off hard or humping on more power does nothing nasty. They are good and they are easy to drive, at a pace (thanks to greater roadholding) that turns out to be a little quicker than even the Mustang GT manages.

The differences in feel and behavior, on the road and the track, precisely reflect the characters that Chevrolet and Pontiac have tried to establish. The IROC-Z Camaros have fractionally more roadholding and sharper handling than the Pontiacs, with the 5.0-liter manual the cleaner of the two Camaros. It turns in crisply and follows its front tires resolutely, seeming to use its tires hard. It has a taut, mechanical feel that says it means business. It’s not really tricky to drive, but its sharpness makes you feel you must concentrate harder and drive more precisely than in the Birds. The firmer, more positively controlled IROC-Z suspension ties the rear axle down especially well. It doesn’t hop under severe braking over ripples the way the Firebird suspensions sometimes do. When the driving surface is smooth, the IROC-Z is a whiz. It is fast and furious, with something akin to the feel of a race car. It determinedly resists understeer, and when you get oversteer with speed and/or power it comes fast, but you can feel it and enjoy it. The experience is a driving workout. But when the surface contains bumps and ripples, it starts to move around; the car feels heavy at the front and it moves at the rear. The ride deteriorates to reveal the firmness of the suspension settings. When you’re drifting at 65 or 70 mph on a two-lane road, though, the ride is comfortable enough.

The Pontiac GTA feels softer than the IROC-Z, its steering has slightly less feel, and it understeers more than the Camaros and its Formula sister. But, on a smooth surface, the message from the understeer is one of stability. The GTA seems to build up speed in the bends more steadily, then exits strongly. It’s slow in and fast out, compared with the IROC-Z’s fast in and fast out. Mostly, the GTA will lope effortlessly along on give-and-take roads, with a more comfortable ride than the IROC-Z. But when you start pushing hard, its greater weight (and our car was heavily optioned) makes it feel like the fat cat of the group, with the nose tending to plow into the bumps. For all that, the GTA remains fast and easy to drive, if not inspiring.

The Firebird Formula is the surprise of the group. It feels lighter, more agile, and friendlier. It’s not strange that it feels sprightlier than the GTA and the big IROC-Z; the point is it’s also more fun than its 5.0-liter IROC-Z equivalent. There is a liveliness that makes it especially likable. Compared with the flat, steely IROC-Z, it seems to dance on tipi-toe and move around more, but it communicates clearly to give you complete confidence. You feel you can flick this car around with the steering, throttle, and brakes, and not have to worry about getting in over your head. As senior editor John Phillips III said, hopping out happily after a heap of laps at Willow Springs: “If I had to pick one for sheer fun right now, this is it. It’s so forgiving.” On the track, the Formula’s only flaw is axle tramp (that doesn’t happen with the stiffer IROC-Z suspension) under severe braking on very ripply surfaces.

On the road, the Formula’s appeal is even stronger. Its more compliant suspension and trace of understeer make it more relaxed and consistent on give-and-take surfaces. It maintains its stability better over bumps, particularly when you are going hard — and you had better believe that all of these cars can go very hard. The feeling of lightness and agility helps a lot on narrow roads, too. It seems easiest to place the Formula, although it is not quite as handy as a Mustang. Moreover, its setup provides marginally better resistance against the Achilles’ heel of cars, like these, with firm suspensions and wide, flat-treaded tires: sudden loss of traction when there is gravel, water, or wet leaves on the road—let alone snow or ice. Come too fast into a bend where any one of these elements lurks, and the front lets go in a big way, fast; pop on too much power and the tail snaps out alarmingly. Clearly, a big-power Camaro or Firebird is not good for areas with a lot of snow and ice.

But where the roads are dry and fairly smooth, where the bends are frequent but the road isn’t too narrow, these cars are wonderful. The “little” cars — the Formula and the 5.0-liter IROC-Z—are best: lighter, less brutal, more responsive, more fun, and — if you’re really driving hard on back roads — faster. Hustling along a demanding road at a crisp 75 to 90 mph, using the road-holding, using the brakes and the fast throttle response - that’s what these cars are all about. And through it all, particularly if there is a moun-tainside to race down, it’s the Formula that holds the edge for greater all-around ability and sheer driving pleasure.

For all of their common good points — and there are many: V-8 torque and response, exceptional smooth-road grip, superb and safe handling — there are many things still wrong with the hard-charging F-cars. If we prefer the Firebird to drive, we aren’t that keen about its presentation. The asymmetrical and ineffectual hood bulge juts into the driver’s line of vision; the stick-on stripes and lettering are still too juvenile; and who wants to see “fuel injection” on the door handles? Nor has Pontiac integrated the Firebird’s high-mounted stoplight as nicely as Chevrolet has on the Camaro, which, overall, is a better-looking car than the Pontiac.

It is inside that the Camaros fall down. Their dashboards are crude, ugly, and inefficient. The main instruments are too low and too far apart, forcing the driver’s eyes far from the road to check the tachometer and speedometer. The Pontiacs’ dashboards — and their cabins overall — are better. Yet the Firebirds have serious failings, shared with the Camaros, that demonstrate a profound deficiency in GM’s understanding of how a sporting car should interact with its driver and passengers.

Except for the new articulated seats of the Firebird GTA (optional in the Trans Am), the F-car seats are awful: too short, too flat, and devoid of adequate lateral support. Even with the tilt option, the steering wheels jut too far toward the driver for a good position to be achieved. The fact that "heel-and-toeing" — so important in such powerful cars — can be performed at all (and it’s difficult) seems to be strictly by accident rather than by design. The controls of the high-spec radio/cassette units are ridiculously — even dangerously — fiddly, and it’s incredible that dashboards so wide and deep don’t dashboards so wide and deep don’t have glove compartments.

Compare the F-cars’ ergonomics, comfort, convenience, and visual and tactile appeal with the Mustang GT and they come off very badly. They lose heavily for paint finish and build quality, too. Nor, with packaging and space utilization that are about as bad as it is possible to find among current cars, do the Camaro and Firebird offer adequate luggage or oddments space. With fuel consumption that, even with the 5.0-liter engines, goes as low as 7.6 mpg when you’re driving really hard and only rises to 16.6 when you’re drifting along two-lanes at 65 mph, their fuel tanks are annoyingly small.

And yet, these faults notwithstanding, the appeal of the hard-charging Camaros and Firebirds remains strong. As Michael Jordan says: “This is what American cars are all about. See that gas pedal? Well, stand on it!” However, for all the hard-edged character of the Ca-maro IROC-Z, for all its greater power, roadholding, and sharper handling, it is the Pontiac Firebird Formula powered by the 5.0-liter engine that emerges as the best example of the genre. It is a testimonial to what a good, solid design the F-car layout has been for so many years. It exemplifies the way in which a simple, sturdy solution can be made to work. It’s a tribute to that sturdiness that the cars can be pounded around a racetrack for upwards of 100 miles without anything breaking or going wrong. We hadn’t intended to do that many laps at Willow Springs: it was simply that, durability apart, the cars were so pleasing and safe to drive that we kept on. Such an honest and fundamental appeal has a future; Chevrolet and Pontiac should extend it by making the F-cars lighter and cleaner, sorting out their ergonomics, and im-proving their space utilization and their build quality.

For the moment, though, if you hear the F-cars’ song and you live where the roads are predominantly smooth and it doesn’t snow often, the TPI 5.0-liter manual is the best of the Camaro IROC-Zs, and the Firebird Formula TPI 5.0 is the best of the bunch. If you don’t like the basic Firebird’s shape, or the way the Formula package tarts it up, opt for the Trans Am body with the TPI 5.0-liter engine, the five-speed transmission, the WS6 suspension and tires, the four-wheel disc brakes, and the articulated GTA seats – and keep the weight down by avoiding as many other options as possible."

CHEVROLET CAMARO IROC-Z

GENERAL

Front engine, rear-wheel-drive coupe
4-passenger, 2-door steel body
Base price/price as tested $12,819/$16,202

MAJOR EQUIPMENT

Air conditioning not available
Sunroof not available
AM/FM cassette $364
Leather interior $750
Cruise control not available

ENGINE

OHV V-8, iron block and heads
Bore x stroke 4.00 x 3.48 in. (101.6 x 88.4 mm)
Displacement 350 cu. in. (5733 cc.)
Compression ratio 9.0:1
Fuel system port fuel injection
Power SAE net 225 bhp @ 4400 rpm
Torque SAE net 330 lb-ft. @ 2800 rpm
Redline 5500 rpm

DRIVETRAIN

4-speed automatic transmission
Gear ratios (I)3.06 (II)1.63 (III)1.0 (IV)0.70
Final drive ratio:.......... 3.27:1

MEASUREMENTS

Wheelbase 101 in.
Track front/rear 60.0/60.9 in.
Length 192.0 in.
Width 72.8 in.
Height 50.3 in.
Curb weight 3341 lb.
Weight distribution front/rear 58/42%
Fuel capacity 15.5 gal.

SUSPENSION

Independent front, with MacPherson struts, coil springs, lower control arms, anti-roll bar
Solid axle rear, with torque tube, trailing links, coil springs, Panhard rod, anti-roll bar

STEERING

Recirculating ball, power assisted

BRAKES

10.5 inch vented discs front
10.5-inch vented discs rear

WHEELS and TIRES

16 x 8.0-inch cast aluminum wheels
245/50VR16 Goodyear Eagle VR tires

PERFORMANCE (manufacturer's data)

0-60 mph in 6.3 sec.
Standing 1/4-mile in 14.6 sec. @ 95.0 mph
Top speed 143 mph
EPA city driving 16 mpg

MAINTENANCE

Headlamp unit $48.75
Front quarter panel $294.00
Brake pads front wheels $44.20 (set)
Air filter $14.15 (two required)
Oil filter $8.76
Recommended oil change interval 3000 miles

PONTIAC FIREBIRD FORMULA

GENERAL

Front engine, rear-wheel-drive coupe
4-passenger, 2-door steel body
Base price/price as tested $10,773/$13,542

MAJOR EQUIPMENT

Air conditioning $775
Sunroof (T-top) $990
AM/FM cassette $489
Leather interior not available
Cruise control $175

ENGINE

OHV V-8, iron block and heads
Bore x stroke 3.74 x 3.48 in. (94.9 x 88.4 mm)
Displacement 305 cu. in. (5000 cc.)
Compression ratio 9.3:1
Fuel system port fuel injection
Power SAE net 205 bhp @ 4400 rpm
Torque SAE net 285 lb-ft. @ 2800 rpm
Redline 5500 rpm

DRIVETRAIN

5-speed manual transmission
Gear ratios (I)2.95 (II)1.94 (III)1.34 (IV)1.00 (V)0.63
Final drive ratio:.......... 3.45:1