2017 Chevrolet Camaro 1SS — Manual, LT1, AFM-Deleted — $36,000

When you're out around town and you park, how many times do you look back at your car as you walk away from it? Five? Eight? Ten? More? This is at least a ten-look car.

How many times have you parked in a lot and had a stranger walk over just to ask about your car? This is that car.

92,427 miles. Black on black. Branded title. Full documentation. Read on — the price makes sense by the end.

The branded title

It's branded. Theft recovery. I'm not going to skim past it because you wouldn't.

Here's what I will do: hand you every inspection record, every repair receipt, every document from the recovery, and everything I've done since I took ownership in October 2024. Nothing hidden. Nothing implied. Nothing you have to take my word for.

A branded title with a thin file is a risk. A branded title with a thick one is just a number on a page — and in this case, a number that's working in your favor. It's the difference between $36,000 and a car that has no business being under $50,000.

What's under the hood

The LT1. 6.2 liters. 455 horsepower. 455 lb-ft of torque. A Tremec TR6060 six-speed manual, 3.73 gears, and a mechanical limited-slip differential doing the work behind it. That was the spec sheet before I ever touched a wrench.

A lifter click started it. A full top-end rebuild finished it.

Here's the part worth understanding, because it's the whole reason this matters: GM never tunes the manual-transmission LT1 to activate AFM in the first place. But "never activated" and "not there" are two different things. The factory manual car still ships with every AFM-specific part sitting in the engine — the collapsible AFM lifters, the AFM camshaft, the AFM valley cover and its oil-control solenoids. Those parts don't fail because AFM is running. They fail because they exist. A tune or a chip that suppresses AFM software doesn't touch any of that — the risk stays parked under the intake, waiting.

This wasn't a tune. This was a physical, mechanical delete. The AFM lifters came out. The AFM camshaft came out. The AFM valley cover came out. Standard, non-AFM hardware went in their place. There is no AFM system left in this engine to fail, active or dormant, tuned or untuned. Just a V8 that gets to be a V8, all the time, every time.

While it was apart, I didn't stop at "close enough":

• Harmonic balancer — replaced

• Serpentine belt tensioner — replaced

• Water pump and thermostat — replaced

• Every belt — replaced

The mechanic felt it. I felt it. We both noticed the power increase the day it went back together. I haven't dyno'd it, so I won't quote you a number I can't stand behind — but it's there, and it will not require your imagination.

This engine is sorted. It is strengthened. It is built to go another 150,000 to 200,000 miles without complaint, or to be the exact right foundation the day a supercharger stops being a daydream and starts being an order form. Either way, the hard part is already done.

Why the 1SS

The 1SS is not the Camaro with the options list crossed off. It is the Camaro built for people who would rather carry less weight than more cupholders.

Cloth sport seats, not leather — lighter, grippier, and they don't turn into a griddle in July. No Magnetic Ride Control — one less expensive electronic system standing between you and the road, and one less thing to eventually replace. Fewer comforts. More car.

It is a manual, which means it does not have the dreaded 8-speed shudder that owners of the automatic LT1 cars know all too well. No torque converter hunting for a gear at low speed, no shudder on takeoff, no software trying to guess what you want. You tell it what you want. It does that.

The manual transmission is not for convenience. It is not for efficiency. It is not for resale value, or for keeping your left leg out of the workout. The manual transmission is for driving. It's for fun. It's for living. If that's not what you're shopping for, I understand. If it is, keep going.

The rest of it

• California car — no rust, none, not a speck, and anyone who's shopped a Rust Belt Camaro knows exactly why that line gets its own bullet

• Factory 1SS front fascia — correct, unmodified, exactly as it left Lansing Grand River

• Black exterior, black wheels, black interior — the theme is not subtle and was never meant to be

• 20-inch factory aluminum wheels

• Brembo 4-piston brakes, front and rear

• Dual-mode NPP exhaust — Tour, Sport, Track, Stealth — a good neighbor or a bad influence, your choice, its choice

• No factory remote start — GM never offered it on manual Camaros, full stop, and I wouldn't trade the third pedal for it anyway

• A few minor scratches, currently being addressed — nothing structural, nothing hidden, just paint being paint

The last of its kind

Chevrolet ended sixth-generation Camaro production after the 2024 model year. No successor has been announced. When this generation stops, it stops with a V8 and a manual, or it doesn't stop with much of anything worth having.

That makes a car like this one a different kind of purchase than "a used Camaro." GM isn't building another one. There is no next-year model to wait for, no incentive to hold out for a better deal on the lot, because the lot is empty and staying that way. What exists right now is what will ever exist. This 1SS — manual, LT1, AFM physically deleted, no rust, fully documented — is as good a version of that ending as you're going to find.

Who this is for

This is a driver's car. Not a collector's car. It does not want a cover, a climate-controlled garage, or a spot reserved at the far end of the parking lot. It wants fuel, a downshift, and a stretch of open canyon road, and it will not let you down on any of the three.

If your Saturday is a can of wax and a soft cloth, this isn't your car, and that's fine — there are Camaros for that. If your Saturday is redline and a grin you can't quite explain to your passenger, this is exactly your car.

This car is also, frankly, for a specific kind of buyer, and I'd rather describe him than dance around it. He already knows what AFM is before he reads this ad — he didn't need me to explain it, he read the mechanical-delete section and nodded. He's the reason manual transmissions still exist in a market that's overwhelmingly automatic: not because he needs one, but because he wants one, and he's not interested in arguing about it. He's done the branded-title math before — he knows the discount is real, he knows the file of receipts is what makes the discount worth taking, and he'd rather have that math work in his favor once than pay full price for someone else's unknown history. He's not buying a Camaro to park it. He's buying one because the manual, V8, no-frills version of this car isn't coming back, and he'd like to be the one driving it into that sunset instead of reading about it later.

If that's not you, this still might not be the wrong ad to have read. If it is you, you already know why I priced it the way I did.

I have documented every mile of this car's story because I expect the next owner to want the same thing I wanted: a car that's honest about what it is and what it's been through. This one is. I'd stand behind every word of this ad in person, in your driveway, with the hood up.

**Asking $36,000.**Factory build sheet and records available for review. Serious enthusiasts welcome.

Offers without seeing the car get crickets from me. After you've seen it, driven it, felt it, and the two of you have had a conversation — I'm happy to hear your offer, because I know we'll reach an agreement.