Matt Berger blipped the throttle and tugged the leather-covered Hurst shifter into second gear just as our Camaro squeezed into a narrow, uphill corner, in the middle of which was a large, unsettling (for car and passenger) dip that felt for sure like it would be the car's over-the-curb launching pad.
Nope. Although the engine was calling for oversteer, the bright red, 375hp Berger 75th Anniversary SS dug its Goodyears into the pavement and powered up the hill. During the dip, Matt even found time to answer his cell phone.
"I'll have to call you back," he told his wife. "I'm driving."
He flipped the phone closed and stuffed it back in his suit coat. Then, it was another quick session through the gears in the quiet west Michigan city of Grand Rapids.
"We've had calls at the dealership asking which one of our salespeople was the maniac tearing down the backstreets here," Matt says with a grin.
So, when the dealership's in-house Camaro-phile, Dennis Barker, suggested a limited-production Camaro to celebrate the dealership's performance heritage, Matt Berger was an eager enabler.
Of course, Matt Berger isn't a salesperson. He's the dealer at Berger Chevrolet in Grand Rapids. He's the guy in charge.
"Our store celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2000 and we just completed a huge renovation," Berger says. "It seemed like a great complement to the dealership."
But he didn't just rubber-stamp a stripe job and called it a "special edition."
"There had to be more power in the package or we weren't going to do it," he says. "We have reputation to maintain."
That reputation for performance stretches back to the '60s, when Berger Chevrolet became one of the nation's premiere outlets for factory and aftermarket parts (see sidebar). In fact, people still call the dealership to ask for Berger's famed "Prescribed Power" decals or copies of Protect-O-Plates for long-gone musclecars.
Chambered Music
Although some of the wrench-turners at the dealership had been experimenting with minor upgrades to LS1-powered cars, Barker hooked up with former SLP Engineering employee Matt Murphy (SLP, of course, being the Chevrolet contractor that assembles the Camaro SS) and his partner, Reese Cox. Murphy, who had already established ties with the dealership when he took official delivery of one of the handful of '97 LT4-powered Camaro SS anniversary cars from Berger, was in a position to help develop a meaningful performance package for the already potent SS. The red car seen here is Berger's development mule and has logged more than 90 sessions on a Dynojet chassis dyno.
"We tried all kinds of things," Barker says. "Some worked, some didn't. Some actually cost some horsepower, but in the end, we came up with a great balance that doesn't sacrifice drivability for outright performance."
That's not to say there isn't outright performance, though. Far from it. Although Murphy and Barker don't want to reveal some of the tricks used to bump the engine's output to 375, we can tell you the LS1's engine wasn't opened up, which was key to making the project affordable and warranty-friendly. (The car was even re-certified for its emissions.) There's some creative airflow management in the exhaust department, but no headers.