FS: 68 Camaro .... $549,900

[Chuck Miller]

GREAT story Buck!!!!!!!

Another 'small block' pair........

The one on the right has a '67 SS Camaro (first year) 350 block in it.......

Good color Steve......

[Buck Lewis]

Steve- my GOD that is a beautiful car to walk away for 28K. I don't know much about the values on these things, but I bought my SS396 4spd blue and black rallye stripe all original Camaro for 3,400 dollars back in the late 70's. And my friends thought I paid too much. No one paid much attention to these things at the time (at least not me) but I believe the guy who sold it to me said it was a Yenko Chevrolet prepared car (I bought it in Pennsylvania, where I lived at the time and later moved to Brooklyn). I was naive enough to drive the car everywhere, and one night I came out of band practice in Manhattan at midnight and the car was gone.

And Chuck, speaking of Chevelles...

I have another story- since you enjoyed that one...

I grew up in a small town in southeastern Pa in the late 60's, and hot rodding was the major pre-occupation for us kids- besides smoking dope and getting into trouble. The center of the universe, at least on any given weekend night, was the local Dairy Queen, on the edge of town. It was owned by a young guy who had a dark reputation. He was a legendary street racer, having been involved in a high speed run that ended tragically for some of the other people involved. I remember to this day the front page accident photos in the local paper- in grainy black and white, a close up of the bloody footwell on the driver's side of the wreck with a scattering of beer cans on the ground. It was an early effort, I think, to terrify all of us into stopping the street racing. Instead it seemed to make this guy into a sort of local antihero. But my point is all of us were a little bit mystified (and afraid) of the guy who ran the place. Our cars were relatively stock- there were a lot of attempts at building hot motors- blowers, hemi engines, all kinds of overdrive gearing and locker rear ends, ladder bars etc. One day this guy appears with his latest weapon of choice. It was was so bad-ass, so out of our league, it was mind boggling. We had never seen anything so radical on the street before. It was full on race car with a license plate hung on it- an immaculate 66' Chevelle (in that classic aqua blue Chevy metallic), tubbed, and gutted, full cage, slammed to the ground with some kind of exotic looking sequential shifter, and a huge Keith Black type monster motor topped with a GMC blower, aluminum engine panels, and no hood. The bar just got raised, and we all might as well have been riding mopeds. Oh, and he just happened to have the hottest girlfriend I had ever laid eyes on. And it was HER car. She managed the place, and so we got to look at her all night, and wish that someday somehow she would so much as look in our direction. Imagine my surprise when one afternoon, she walked up to me and asked me if I would like to go for a ride. In her car. That car, with THAT girl.

Chuck, I tell you, I knew, even as it was happening, that I would never forget the experience. As if in a dream, I followed her out to the parking lot, we get into the car. It was so loud inside the car we could hardly talk. But she was obviously enjoying herself. We were in silent communion anyway- over the awesomeness of the car, and the knowledge that were were in a shining moment, a brilliant moment that would never be repeated in our lifetimes. The next thing I remember she rolled to a stop at the flashing lights of the school crossing for the elementary school just a few blocks from the Dairy Queen. The kids were all in class, the street was dead calm, no traffic, a straight shot for at least a good 1/4 mile. I remember the heat waves on the street, the calm. It was like that moment in Star Wars, I swear to God. I looked at her, she looked at me, she smiled, locked the car into gear, stood on the pedal and nailed it. There was an ungodly deafening roar, and then the universe suddenly warped into hyperdrive.

So believe me when I tell you, Chevelles will always have a special place in my soul

[fryardds]

Brian,
Your friend Tom has one very cool and valuable '68 Z28 (Assuming it is one of the original Penske/Donahue Trans Am cars.) There were 2-4 Penske/Donahue constructed early Z28 camaro race cars each of the three years that Penske/Donahue competed in Trans Am Racing during 1967-'68-'69 period until they switched to AMC in 1970. (Probably a total of about 8-10 cars.) .

Hi Richard,

Yes, the car pictured is Donahue's championship car from the '68 season. I can't recall the story in great detail but when Tom found the car years ago it was remarkably intact. It still had the original interior (seat, steering wheel, door panels, instruments, etc.) in place from the '68 season. Of all the cars in his collection, this one is my favorite.

[CurtEgerer]

Great stories Buck! This is/was my '69 SS396 right before I sold it in 1979. I got $3700 for it which was great money at the time. By this time I had gone back to a stock configuration on the car (complete with the Polyglas bias-ply tires!). At one time, it had huge wheels/tires on the back, 3" or 4" drag wheels on the front, a fuel pressure gauge mounted outside on the hood and other stuff I forget these days, some sort of aftermarket cam, some head mods, headers and the requisite Holley carb (well, until a local drag racer showed me how to modify Quadrajet carbs to perform even better!). It was known as one of the fastest cars in town and my arch-nemesis was a guy with a ..... aqua blue w/ white stripes Z28. I didn't really know what he had done to his motor and he didn't know mine. We acknowledged each other but hung out in different groups so I don't think we ever had a conversation Somehow, we only met up once on the street and I had my eyes opened to the goodness of a 302 SB as well, although we were fairly even in performance.

[Jim Garfield]

Curt, you might remember this car from Tri City, it was one of the Shaker Engineering cars from Bay City that won the Nationals one year. Shaker Engineering was a GM skunkworks operation that appeared to be run out of a two bay garage next to the guy's house by a couple of GM engineers. It was very low key, and just down the street from where I grew up. I used to walk by the place on my way to and from high school to check out what they were working on. For a long time they ran a blue Nova that never had any sponsor logos or decals and it was always immaculately prepared - think Penske immaculate, and it was rarely beaten . A GM truck would show up occasionally with a new engine and they would swap it out for the one in the car.

This Camaro is the National championship car and was restored in '04 by one of the Shaker Engineering guys who still lives on Nurmi Dr in Bay City and does consulting work for NASCAR teams. A buddy of mine from high school who is an artist had it in his shop to recreate the graphics from when it was sponsored by Draper Chevrolet in the late 60s and early '70s, and it happened to be there when I was out to visit my mother. He was nervous about having the car there because it was so valuable, and about two weeks after he got done painting it a big halogen light tipped over and the whole shop burned to the ground. He lost a lot of artwork, but the car had been moved just before it happened. I like the photos that were taken at the house and loading it up at Tri City - in the day, as they say.

[CurtEgerer]

Sweet! I do remember seeing the car many times. Wenzel's car was also affiliated with Shaker Engineering (that must be where the GM skunkworks program I'm thinking of came out of) but they ran it out of Competition Engineering (or maybe Enterprises?) on M-46 in Merrill. The building is still there but is abandoned these days.

[CurtEgerer]

Not sure if these are 68 Camaros, but a pretty cool shot nonetheless:

[VZ935]

I think Jerry MacNeish still owns the Strickler's Z . Jerry offered to me a few years ago but the price was pretty heavy .

Tom McIntire's Penske 68 Camaro.... don't let Tom hear about you referring to his car as a CamEro or you may be in trouble


I love the first gen Camaro's . I currently have a few 69 Z/28's a one family owned 7500 original mile 69 COPO M22 Camaro with it's born with drive train and factory documentation. A real ground pounder.

A couple of my 69 Z/28s under restoration with a few old Porsche race cars in the background ....

[VZ935]

Not sure if these are 68 Camaros, but a pretty cool shot nonetheless:

67's Curt .. the only year of the "wing" windows

[fryardds]

Oops, my bad.

Speaking of Tom McIntyre he sent me a request not long ago that I think you could answer concerning some NOS 935 tires he has. I'll send you the details in a PM. Thanks.