My Background Note

My interest in Camaros goes beyond the collecting and archiving of technical data. My first experience with Camaros was in the summer of 1968. My father owned a Chevrolet dealership and had taken in a repossessed 1967 Camaro. It was a low mileage red sport coupe with a black interior, 6 cylinder engine, and floor shift manual transmission. My father attempted to buy it from the finance company, but the owner was able to make good on his loan, and soon got his precious Camaro back. Later that summer, a young man in our small town, brought his Camaro to the dealership for warranty repairs. It was a 1968 green RS/SS 396-375hp Camaro, with a 4 speed manual transmission. The young man had bought it due to being disappointed with his 1968 Dodge R/T with the 426 hemi engine. Apparently he had destroyed 2 engines at $2000 apiece. The car was becoming a liability and he sold it to buy the Camaro. He claimed that the Camaro was just as fast and was much more dependable than his hemi. The Camaro sat in the service bay for many days as it waited for parts to arrive from back east. I used to come and look at it after school, dreaming of owning one just like it some day. I got my chance to buy a car once out of high school. I purchased my first Camaro in July of 1973. I had dreamed of owning a Z28, but the rarity of that particular model prevented the purchasing of one when the opportunity came to buy a car. I located a used Camaro at a local Chevrolet dealer. It was a 1971 sport coupe, with the base 350 engine. As what happens to many sports cars, it was not driven responsibly, and was in a serious accident. Since the car was unrepairable, I took the insurance money and started searching the want ads, looking for my dream car. In August of 1973, I found a pristine 1969 Camaro Z28 that was owned by a young attorney with 26,000 miles on it. A deal was struck and I headed home with my prized Camaro. The car was a pleasure to own. It ran beautifully right from the beginning. I kept the car for 2 years before running out of money going to college and I had to sell it. For the next 15 years, I was without a Camaro. Getting married and raising a family created greater priorities than owning a Camaro. Eventually things worked out and I was again in the market for a Camaro. In May, 1990 I located a very badly driven 1968 Camaro through the local newspaper. My son and I went to look at it together. He showed very little interest in this old beat up car. I recognized it to be an original 1968 RS/SS 396 Camaro. If I would have been able to order a new 1968 Camaro, this car would have been it. The car had most of the options that I would have ordered. Over the next several years, I began locating the parts and spending hundreds of hours restoring it to what it would have looked like back in 1968. The car is almost completed, and is now giving me back the pleasure of all the labor that went into it. If you go to the photo gallery section on my web site, you will find many photos of the restoration as well as pictures of my brother's cars. I hope you get as much enjoyment out of this site as I have had putting it together.