20157

The King Of Camaros

The camaro has had a long proud history with Chevrolet, it been through four generations of improvements, and now its going on its fifth generation, none of them have quite had the flair of the first generation.

But the new fifth generation camaro is poised to at least match the popularity of the first generation camaro, if not do better, the first generation camaro is still far and away my favorite, but the fifth generation is going to take a close second place now, a spot taken for many years by the second generation model, this new camaro has pushed the second generation model back to third position for me.

I never thought in my wildest dreams that a new camaro would come out and boot the second generation camaro out of its rightful spot in second place for me, after the 1973 model, I really didnt like the camaro any more, I figured that Chevrolet could have put a bit more thought in to the car, but they have made up for that in a big way with the new camaro concept car, all they need to do is produce it now KUDOS to them.

Now I will talk a little about my favorite camaro, the first generation, this was a very special car, it had a medium low stance, with highly pronounced side body lines that just seemed to melt away at the end of the car, in the 1969 model the front fenders rolled around at the bottom, where they joined up to the front valance, with two signal lights in the middle of it, and the small front bumper just above the front valance.

The 1969 model was a wide and medium heavy car at 3450 pounds with out the driver, and with a big block you could add another 200 pounds to that number, which is why models like the COPO 9560 exist with the aluminum big block, that weighed about the same as a small block, the 9560 was factory rated at 450 HP but dynode at closer to 625 hp, this was not a car for the weak of heart, youd better be ready for this ride.

The camaro was a very heavily optioned car, with a wide variety of add on parts that you could get right from the factory, on the Z/28 model you could get four wheel disc brakes, a cross ram intake manifold with two 500 cfm double pumper holley carburetors on it, you could add the off road cam for more power, and you had rear end gear choices from a 2.35 all the way to a 4.56, with a Muncie M22 rock crusher transmission with four speeds, and this just gets the list started.

Theres a lot of reasons why the first generation camaro is my favorite, but not the least which is that I owned a 1969 Z/28, before my mom got pissed off and sold it while I was on a vacation away from home, the first generation camaro just had a certain feel about it, it just emulated power, it was a real muscle car, a mans machine, a car to be reckoned with.

I've been in the automotive business for about 20 or 25 years, I have worked in all facets of the industry, from parts to restoration, all different makes and models, I just want to keep people interested in the old cars because it's where my heart is.

Muscle car restoration

Auto Restoration Alliance

posted by sdsd99498 @ 3:25 PM