'68 Camaro - Another one?! Again?! Really?

[Leroy Rochester]

Actually, one more thing I need to get off my chest early before I sign off...

The stripe.

Yes, it's horrible. I still have nightmares about it and I still hate it...

Not the fact that it has the stripe, but the B/S repaint version. In NY it seemed like everyone had a "body and fender guy" that would do little spring refreshes on your cars. Paint, rust proof, dent and ding repair.

For years my grandparents and parents used a guy named Willie Clemmons down off of Salina St. in Syracuse. Willie was a nice guy and hell, you get what you pay for right?! Over the years, the car took on sort of a multi-colored, wavy appearance as a result of this ad hoc annual bodywork.

When I was around 17 or 18, I talked my dad into trading some accounting work for a repaint from one of his clients. The car went to Hawk Frame and Collision in the south eastern suburbs or Rochester (can't remember exactly where) and was introduced to a concept that I've never fondly referred to as the "paint car wash".

It came home with many insteresting acts of aggresion that could loosely be referred to as "bodywork" but the real touchstone for how half-assed it was was that horrible, mis-aligned, unbroken nose stripe.

So now you all know that I know, and you all know why. Ahhhh, feels better to get that monkey off my back! Until a few weeks ago, it was a standing source of embarassment. As of now, the car is virtually stripe free, but that's a story for later!

[67zo6Camaro]

That's so cool. Great set of pictures.

[intocarss]

Very cool story. I love cars with history behind them.

[Flash68]

Killer cars. Great story and photos! Glad you're on board.

[Leroy Rochester]

Thanks guys! Yeah, feels good to get a little internet inspiration to keep moving on this thing!

Brett, I'm going to have to come up to your shop sometime and look around. So much interesting stuff on your website! And I'd have to imagine that in-cabin radiator really kept things comfortable and fog free on chilly Mojave mornings up at Willow!

[Leroy Rochester]

So, back to the story... But first another quick interjection about the '67, since you guys got a kick out of my '68 being a "family" car. If any of you guys know Ryan Flaherty from NASA, you'll enjoy hearing that his mom bought my '67 brand new and I dug that car out of Ryan's grandparents back yard in Tarzana back in 2001.

Anyhow, since I already had a road-race Camaro, I began to flirt with the notion of cloning a 396 SS with this car. My wife actually came with an all original iron head, solid lifter L71/L72 427 when I married her (ain't she cool?!) so that made its way into the car, backed by a Muncie 4 speed I had kicking around after I sold my '66 Impala convertible as a roller).

But before long, I developed a bit of a fantasy about possibly using the car for some sort of drag racing, and it begain to take on that persona, with a bit of "Aloha Bobby and Rose" thrown in for good measure.

At the end of the "big block drag car" posing phase, it had a TH400 in it instead of the 4 speed.

I couldn't find any good underhood pictures with the 427 in the car, other than a close up of the lifter valley... After I blew up the 427 out on PCH acting like a 13 year-old (the pictures with the radials and the black hood were taking immediately after it came screeching and rattling to a stop across PCH from Bolsa Chica State Beach).

[Leroy Rochester]

So with the motor blown, my '67 and my boat sold (boat nonsense it a whole different episode of Jerry Springer) I decided to do something stupid and rebuild the car to corner based on the random spare stuff I had kicking around...

I still had the CCWs from trying DOT radial race rubber on the '67 (yes, I was wearing arm restraints in that pic, hated the window net), I still had a 570" Merlin wide rail block motor from the boat and my buddy had a pretty slick looking T101A kicking around... Sounds like fun to me!

At one point, I even decided that I was going to cage the car and picked up a fiberglass front clip, doors and truck lid!

I'll admit it, I was still kind of trying to "find myself" and a direction on this project!