The Chevrolet Camaro ZL1's 10-Speed Auto Laughs In The Face Of Your Porsche PDK Gearbox

Clearly a fan of a good pub boast, Chevrolet has decided to tell the world that its new 10-speed automatic gearbox shifts faster than Porsche's dual-clutch transmission

Matt Robinson

12 May 2016

The Chevrolet Camaro ZL1's 10-Speed Auto Laughs In The Face Of Your Porsche PDK Gearbox

When news of Chevrolet’s new Camaro ZL1 dropped earlier this year, one detail stood out: its optional 10-speed automatic gearbox. Now we’ve gotten over all the Vin Diesel and ‘lol it’d be a mountain bike if it had any more gears‘ jokes, General Motors has decided to tell the world just how fast its new 10-speeder is.

It actually shifts quicker than Porsche’s super fast twin-clutch PDK gearbox on certain changes. It’s 36 per cent quicker when shifting from first to second, 27 per cent quicker from second to third and 26 per cent quicker for the third-fourth upshift. What GM doesn’t say is how it compares to PDK on the remaining upshifts, or any of the downshifts, but still - that’s an impressive claim.

The speed is all down to clutches. While it may have a torque converter, this is no ordinary slush box. Why? Because it’s rocking six clutches: two brake clutches and four rotating clutches. And despite having an extra clutch and two more gears than GM’s eight-speed ‘box, clever packaging means the overall size is about the same.

Other fancy features include a new low viscosity transmission fluid to reduce friction, and an “internal thermal bypass” which allows for shorter warm-up times.

It’s worth noting that this gearbox won’t be restricted to fancy schmancy GM products like the ZL1 - it’s set to appear in eight of the firm’s cars by 2018, and as it’s been co-developed with Ford, will also be installed in Blue Oval machines like the F-150.

Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.

Comments

If it will be used by Ford that means that now no pedestrians will escape?

Putting 15 gears would make it even quicker because the ratios would be so close but there’s no sense in this as it just makes you shift all the time plus I bet it is much heavier than porsche’s pdk. Hence why muscle cars weigh as much as a smaller size cargo ship.

Meh, give me a manual.

This is going to be a nightmare to service, will almost certainly weigh more than the Titanic for a 10 speed which you’ll have to shift more times than the more reliable, lighter Porsche to get to the exact same speed negating any gains made in shifting performance. Porsche is the standard for a reason. They don’t do stupid one-up competitions with numbers at the expense of literally everything else.