KUSI
02-04-2011, 06:43 PM
This is a true survivor, one-family owned restoration project that has turned out to be a life-long journey/dream of mine. Everyone of you looking at this thread will know what type of car it is by scanning to the pictures below. Some of you might sigh and think oh lord not another one in the project thread section but the rest of us can never seem to get enough of these cars. :) So if you don't mind a very long story here is how this car came to be in my life.
Before my family relocated to North Alabama in the 70s we were living outside of Detroit Michigan. Both of my grandfathers worked for Ford UAW and both of my uncles worked for Ford engineering. I pretty much thought that the Ford family was my destiny too but life changes and that is a different story. So picture it, 1969, my mom, with my grandfather in tow as a co-signer, heads out to pick her very own new car. It's her first car so it has to be something cool. And anybody growing up in that time remembers the bitter rivalry amongst car companies. Don't even think about mentioning a foreign car company then. It was Ford versus GM, plain and simple. So naturally my mom HAS to head to the Ford dealership right? A Mustang pony car is surely in her future right? Looking back on this I have no idea how she pulled it off. Maybe it was the love for your daughter that won this round. Either way, she got my grandfather on the Chevrolet lot and she began to pick out a Camaro. It was model year end clearance time so she told me there weren't but three cars left on the lot. And the colors were Daytona Yellow, Hugger Orange, and...Burnished Brown. Yes, she picked the brown! Hey it was earth tones time back then. Stop laughing. This color has definitely endured a life long love or hate relationship in the Camaro community. When I was young I only cared that this cool muscle car was in the family. A few years past and needless to say my Mom and her friends all enjoyed riding around in the car. The car was/is a standard Camaro with a few options. Those included the larger 350 engine versus the 327, turbo 350 trans, and power steering. That P/S was a blessing for these cars. And A/C? Come on now this was Michigan. That was probably a joke on the lot. Not to mention an $800 option on a $3200 car. So fast forward through some of her life changes such as marriage, kids, and a husband being transferred to a different state. The Camaro was still a great daily driver but the damage had already been done. You guys still living up north know about this all too well. Salt on the roads equals rust and death to these cars. But this car still endured many more years as it became my Dad's daily driver to work. Normal maintenance was always done to it but that rust process never stopped. Fast forward again to 1983 and now I am a 13 year old boy interested in two things...one of which was this muscle car. And hopefully this car helped with the other interest. :naughty: I begged for it to stay and become my car when I turned 16. My Dad was ready for something new and rightly so. The car's aged drum brakes, leaking roof, tons of rust, and now missing floor boards had the car classified as a Fred Flintstone mobile. There were even instances at our house where this car was almost traded equally for an old Chevy pickup truck if it wasn't for me. I won't sugarcoat it, this Camaro became a heavily debated issue in our house. Unfortunately, Mom had to become the moderator for helping keep the car. Thanks Mom! In the end my devotion to this car won out (with Mom's help), I turned 16, and the car was now mine...with a catch. My Dad was done with the car and all maintenance costs or upgrades were now my responsibility. Oh crap. The money thing. Yeah, that. Looking back on it now I chalk it up as life lessons because this car helped me learn the value of saving money and the rewards that come from buying something with hard earned money. Dave Ramsey can't teach you that on the radio. Along with the devotion to this car came a promise I made when I was 16...that I would NEVER sell this car! Come on, you have all heard or experienced first hand the stories about a guy describing the muscle car he had to let go. There are almost tears in his eyes right? That wasn't going to be me. No way!
Now fast forward in my life. High school graduation, college graduation, moving out of the house, multiple hobbies, girlfriends, and moving to a different town. All of these events seemed to win out over getting the Camaro restored the way I really wanted to. But keeping to my promise of never selling it the car lived for quite a few years in a self-storage unit surrounded by the then hobby of jet skies. Every time I went to the storage unit to grab one of those skies I would see the car and just feel the overwhelming tasks that really lie ahead. At that point I had to do something about the rust soon or there wouldn't be a car left to save. So after getting my career underway and saving enough money I set out to locate someone local that could at least save the car with sheetmetal repair. The internet and forums didn't exist back then kiddies so finding reputable people was a difficult task. In 1993 the sheetmetal repair was completed by a guy well known for fixing/restoring Mustangs. Kind of ironic. I also had him coat the car in an epoxy primer to help prevent rust. In case you are wondering the guy was decent at sheetmetal repair but the paint jobs left much to be desired so the paint job didn't happen. Still, mission accomplished for now. Before I knew it life blew by again, it was now 2001 and I was happily married. In that timeframe my girlfriend, now wife, had to endure my non-stop talks about what I would love to do to the car. What I would do or could finally do mechanically to the car if only it was painted. In the end her love and support was always there. She was just sick of hearing about it. She said just DO something already! Okay, Okay! So with that I began the journey of trying to find someone to help with the body work and paint. I struck out in the paint phase big time. Got a guy lined up, skips town. Got a guy lined up, doesn't want to paint anymore. Got a guy lined up, can't do that anymore because there is more money with insurance work. Got a guy lined up, hmm, not getting a warm fuzzy with the shop or him. Got a guy lined up, doh that phone number got lost during our last move. Got the last guy lined up, ready to go, yes, it is going to happen, um no, he was in the housing sheetrock business and housing was booming so he had no time to paint. I just gave up! That would have been 2007. Ah, but now the internet and forums do exist! Shows about restoration are on TV constantly such as OverHaulin, Rides, Powerblock, or Hot Rod TV. These TV shows I think sparked the whole muscle car restoration business again and opened my eyes and ears to people and shops I didn't know existed. I can't tell you how many times my wife would ask me when watching these shows if Chevrolet ever truly stopped making the first gen Camaro. And even the auction houses such as Barrett Jackson were helping provide spark to this hobby. Many times my wife would see a rare 69 go across the block at Barrett for over $200,000. To her it looked just like the one now living in our garage. She once asked me if mine was a Yenko. For laughter, I said yes and that I hadn't got the headrests and stripes back on the car yet. Hey, I love good comedy. Deep down inside she knows the car wouldn't be sold but I bet it was pretty cool thinking it was worth that much.
With all of the muscle car exposure I starting feeling the drive to get my butt in gear again on the car. I had been living in the forums as a lurker at Camaros.net, Lateral-G, and then finally at Pro-Touring. These forums ended up being a blessing and a curse. The exposure I received to all the cool new parts, the handling components, the wheels and tires, the four links, the LS fury, oh lord make it stop! I couldn't get very far without bodywork and paint but I could turn my garage into a parts crib. So after numerous weeks living and learning in the forums I had put together a wish list of items and set out with a project budget. I can say that if you don't take these measures you will put yourself up for the snowball effect that can so easily happen once you decide to go frame off restoration. Now my restoration will by no means be a six figure build. Nor will it be a $10-20k build. If you are even in this forum reading this post then you know what I mean. It just can't happen because those days are gone. Body shops and parts distributors all need to eat too. Just stick to your dream, save the money, and at least get or keep the car a rolling driver. I didn't take my own advice but jumped right into it yelling Bonzai! Off the parts came and with numerous jackstands and two floor jacks off the subframe came. Not that I didn't want to do this but there is still something to be said for being able to simply DRIVE your car. Almost two years went by and I really missed driving it. But within those two years I have made it to numerous Pro-Touring events. Run Through the Hills, Peach State, and Nashville Good Guys. From these events I have had the pleasure of meeting numerous people in the Pro-Touring forums. Bill Howell, Frank and Lisa of Prodigy, Yancy, Larry Callahan, David Sloan, Stevo, Adam, and numerous others who I can put together now with their cars. I even got to meet Kyle and Stacy Tucker and crew from Detroit Speed & Engineering. On quite a few occassions you guys might have seen me standing around with Steven Rupp of Camaro Performers just taking pictures at all of these events. I was the guy just trying to contribute to the forums through pictures all the while I was crying on the inside because my car was at home on jack stands. At many of these events there was that one guy that seemed to stand out. The guy who seemed to beat on his cars just as much if not more than most. Yep, you guessed it. It is our resident autocross superhero Brian Finch. However, the first day I introduced myself to him he just seemed like mild mannered Clark Kent. One event after another I saw this guy drive the crap out of his cars and win. And he was driving the crap out of some REALLY nice cars. To be honest, what I had gathered from the forums was that Brian loved to autocross and that he could assemble a top notch Pro-Touring car. This was further evident when he unveiled Mark Turners little number called Kryptonite. NOW he really had my attention and I needed to talk to this guy. At 2010 Nashville Good Guys this just didn't happen. He was driving three cars and by then numerous people were talking with Brian and the Tuckers about autocrossing. So nothing happened. Bummer. But when I returned that night I was in the Pro-Touring forums and I went through the whole Kryptonite project thread. Do you guys remember the picture of Finch reflecting in the green paint with a painters suit on and holding a Corona? Yeah, that picture is what sealed the deal for me. This guy obviously had the skills, talent, was also a painter, and he was located only a few hours away. Is this too good to be true? I had to go talk to this guy soon and basically plead my case or story to him. Maybe he would be generous enough to consider helping me out. Just a few month later at the 2010 Peach State event that very thing happened. I talked with Brian a good hour or two throughout the day and in the end he agreed to take on my project. This to me was a huge leap of faith and spoke volumes of his confidence in building because at that point he hadn't even seen my car in person yet. At the end of that day I think I could hear church choir music and see the sunlight shining down between the clouds. This is really going to happen. Hallelujah! Can I getta AMEN! :angel:
For the next four months I did my best to get the subframe and front end completed on my car before Brian's schedule became free. If he can knock out an entire car in this amount of time then surely I can at least get a front end done in that amount of time. Well it was close but I did finish by November and true to his word Finch got my car to his shop to start breaking it down and giving it a good go over. Considering the cars he has taken on before that sheetmetal work I had done in the 90s really helped with the overall effort Brian needed to do. Nothing would have slowed him down anyway. I have seen and heard of the cars Mark Turner can find for Brian. But what might turn out to be a couple month project with some shops can be knocked out by Brian in a few weeks or sometimes days. I don't care what he says...he doesn't sleep. He is not human! He is a Pro-Touring machine. The work that has been done to my car in two months has left me speechless sometimes. Heck, the first panel that actually got final paint almost brought a tear to my eye. You guys with love for these cars know how it feels. Priceless. Even Mom and Dad have been thoroughly impressed with how the pictures of the car look. Having Mom say the car looks better than it did new is pretty cool and a true testament to Brian's work.
During the last few months I didn't put together a project thread on my car since you guys have seen so many of this type muscle car. And I was definitely going to stick to my budget which in the end might not produce a car you guys have grown so accustomed to seeing on here. But for every one of those type builds I thought there would have to be at least a hundred guys shooting for that middle ground. You know, the readers rides section or something similar. So the longer I thought about it the more I realized how much I have learned and simply enjoyed looking at pictures of everyone's build in the forum. There is something for everyone and every budget in here. Plus once I saw the work Finch produced on my car I thought it deserves to be seen. I think the Crazy Canadian Albert and Mark Turner can back me up on this one. So with that I set out trying to recover some long lost photos and tell you my story. Over the next few weeks I will be posting pictures of the restoration process that I have gone through throughout the years and then eventually catch back up to the progress Finch has already made with the car to date. And along the way maybe now I can actually help someone else out in the forum with questions about builds such as mine. In the end I would definitely say to you guys that sometimes good things come to those who wait. With the car now having a solid foundation and soon to have paint after 15 years of trying, I feel the rest will just fall into place. Once I reach that goal then you guys can all start influencing me over to a full blown LS swap and four link suspensions. MmHmm.
So with that I say a heartfelt Thanks to all of you in the Pro-Touring community for the help, Thanks to Brian Finch for helping make this dream become a reality, and most of all...Thanks Mom! :worship:
KUSI
The pictures below are one of the only remaining photos I have of the original Burnished Brown paint job. After that the photos show my gray "Primero" as it was referred to in high school. The car had been hit in the front fender because it spent its life parked in the street as you see it. The insurance company paid for the fender to be replaced and gave a few hundred dollars extra for touch up paint. Touch up 20 year old paint? So with that we were convinced into having the car paint removed and covered in primer. Big Mistake! It helped accelerate the rust process even further. Live and learn!
Before my family relocated to North Alabama in the 70s we were living outside of Detroit Michigan. Both of my grandfathers worked for Ford UAW and both of my uncles worked for Ford engineering. I pretty much thought that the Ford family was my destiny too but life changes and that is a different story. So picture it, 1969, my mom, with my grandfather in tow as a co-signer, heads out to pick her very own new car. It's her first car so it has to be something cool. And anybody growing up in that time remembers the bitter rivalry amongst car companies. Don't even think about mentioning a foreign car company then. It was Ford versus GM, plain and simple. So naturally my mom HAS to head to the Ford dealership right? A Mustang pony car is surely in her future right? Looking back on this I have no idea how she pulled it off. Maybe it was the love for your daughter that won this round. Either way, she got my grandfather on the Chevrolet lot and she began to pick out a Camaro. It was model year end clearance time so she told me there weren't but three cars left on the lot. And the colors were Daytona Yellow, Hugger Orange, and...Burnished Brown. Yes, she picked the brown! Hey it was earth tones time back then. Stop laughing. This color has definitely endured a life long love or hate relationship in the Camaro community. When I was young I only cared that this cool muscle car was in the family. A few years past and needless to say my Mom and her friends all enjoyed riding around in the car. The car was/is a standard Camaro with a few options. Those included the larger 350 engine versus the 327, turbo 350 trans, and power steering. That P/S was a blessing for these cars. And A/C? Come on now this was Michigan. That was probably a joke on the lot. Not to mention an $800 option on a $3200 car. So fast forward through some of her life changes such as marriage, kids, and a husband being transferred to a different state. The Camaro was still a great daily driver but the damage had already been done. You guys still living up north know about this all too well. Salt on the roads equals rust and death to these cars. But this car still endured many more years as it became my Dad's daily driver to work. Normal maintenance was always done to it but that rust process never stopped. Fast forward again to 1983 and now I am a 13 year old boy interested in two things...one of which was this muscle car. And hopefully this car helped with the other interest. :naughty: I begged for it to stay and become my car when I turned 16. My Dad was ready for something new and rightly so. The car's aged drum brakes, leaking roof, tons of rust, and now missing floor boards had the car classified as a Fred Flintstone mobile. There were even instances at our house where this car was almost traded equally for an old Chevy pickup truck if it wasn't for me. I won't sugarcoat it, this Camaro became a heavily debated issue in our house. Unfortunately, Mom had to become the moderator for helping keep the car. Thanks Mom! In the end my devotion to this car won out (with Mom's help), I turned 16, and the car was now mine...with a catch. My Dad was done with the car and all maintenance costs or upgrades were now my responsibility. Oh crap. The money thing. Yeah, that. Looking back on it now I chalk it up as life lessons because this car helped me learn the value of saving money and the rewards that come from buying something with hard earned money. Dave Ramsey can't teach you that on the radio. Along with the devotion to this car came a promise I made when I was 16...that I would NEVER sell this car! Come on, you have all heard or experienced first hand the stories about a guy describing the muscle car he had to let go. There are almost tears in his eyes right? That wasn't going to be me. No way!
Now fast forward in my life. High school graduation, college graduation, moving out of the house, multiple hobbies, girlfriends, and moving to a different town. All of these events seemed to win out over getting the Camaro restored the way I really wanted to. But keeping to my promise of never selling it the car lived for quite a few years in a self-storage unit surrounded by the then hobby of jet skies. Every time I went to the storage unit to grab one of those skies I would see the car and just feel the overwhelming tasks that really lie ahead. At that point I had to do something about the rust soon or there wouldn't be a car left to save. So after getting my career underway and saving enough money I set out to locate someone local that could at least save the car with sheetmetal repair. The internet and forums didn't exist back then kiddies so finding reputable people was a difficult task. In 1993 the sheetmetal repair was completed by a guy well known for fixing/restoring Mustangs. Kind of ironic. I also had him coat the car in an epoxy primer to help prevent rust. In case you are wondering the guy was decent at sheetmetal repair but the paint jobs left much to be desired so the paint job didn't happen. Still, mission accomplished for now. Before I knew it life blew by again, it was now 2001 and I was happily married. In that timeframe my girlfriend, now wife, had to endure my non-stop talks about what I would love to do to the car. What I would do or could finally do mechanically to the car if only it was painted. In the end her love and support was always there. She was just sick of hearing about it. She said just DO something already! Okay, Okay! So with that I began the journey of trying to find someone to help with the body work and paint. I struck out in the paint phase big time. Got a guy lined up, skips town. Got a guy lined up, doesn't want to paint anymore. Got a guy lined up, can't do that anymore because there is more money with insurance work. Got a guy lined up, hmm, not getting a warm fuzzy with the shop or him. Got a guy lined up, doh that phone number got lost during our last move. Got the last guy lined up, ready to go, yes, it is going to happen, um no, he was in the housing sheetrock business and housing was booming so he had no time to paint. I just gave up! That would have been 2007. Ah, but now the internet and forums do exist! Shows about restoration are on TV constantly such as OverHaulin, Rides, Powerblock, or Hot Rod TV. These TV shows I think sparked the whole muscle car restoration business again and opened my eyes and ears to people and shops I didn't know existed. I can't tell you how many times my wife would ask me when watching these shows if Chevrolet ever truly stopped making the first gen Camaro. And even the auction houses such as Barrett Jackson were helping provide spark to this hobby. Many times my wife would see a rare 69 go across the block at Barrett for over $200,000. To her it looked just like the one now living in our garage. She once asked me if mine was a Yenko. For laughter, I said yes and that I hadn't got the headrests and stripes back on the car yet. Hey, I love good comedy. Deep down inside she knows the car wouldn't be sold but I bet it was pretty cool thinking it was worth that much.
With all of the muscle car exposure I starting feeling the drive to get my butt in gear again on the car. I had been living in the forums as a lurker at Camaros.net, Lateral-G, and then finally at Pro-Touring. These forums ended up being a blessing and a curse. The exposure I received to all the cool new parts, the handling components, the wheels and tires, the four links, the LS fury, oh lord make it stop! I couldn't get very far without bodywork and paint but I could turn my garage into a parts crib. So after numerous weeks living and learning in the forums I had put together a wish list of items and set out with a project budget. I can say that if you don't take these measures you will put yourself up for the snowball effect that can so easily happen once you decide to go frame off restoration. Now my restoration will by no means be a six figure build. Nor will it be a $10-20k build. If you are even in this forum reading this post then you know what I mean. It just can't happen because those days are gone. Body shops and parts distributors all need to eat too. Just stick to your dream, save the money, and at least get or keep the car a rolling driver. I didn't take my own advice but jumped right into it yelling Bonzai! Off the parts came and with numerous jackstands and two floor jacks off the subframe came. Not that I didn't want to do this but there is still something to be said for being able to simply DRIVE your car. Almost two years went by and I really missed driving it. But within those two years I have made it to numerous Pro-Touring events. Run Through the Hills, Peach State, and Nashville Good Guys. From these events I have had the pleasure of meeting numerous people in the Pro-Touring forums. Bill Howell, Frank and Lisa of Prodigy, Yancy, Larry Callahan, David Sloan, Stevo, Adam, and numerous others who I can put together now with their cars. I even got to meet Kyle and Stacy Tucker and crew from Detroit Speed & Engineering. On quite a few occassions you guys might have seen me standing around with Steven Rupp of Camaro Performers just taking pictures at all of these events. I was the guy just trying to contribute to the forums through pictures all the while I was crying on the inside because my car was at home on jack stands. At many of these events there was that one guy that seemed to stand out. The guy who seemed to beat on his cars just as much if not more than most. Yep, you guessed it. It is our resident autocross superhero Brian Finch. However, the first day I introduced myself to him he just seemed like mild mannered Clark Kent. One event after another I saw this guy drive the crap out of his cars and win. And he was driving the crap out of some REALLY nice cars. To be honest, what I had gathered from the forums was that Brian loved to autocross and that he could assemble a top notch Pro-Touring car. This was further evident when he unveiled Mark Turners little number called Kryptonite. NOW he really had my attention and I needed to talk to this guy. At 2010 Nashville Good Guys this just didn't happen. He was driving three cars and by then numerous people were talking with Brian and the Tuckers about autocrossing. So nothing happened. Bummer. But when I returned that night I was in the Pro-Touring forums and I went through the whole Kryptonite project thread. Do you guys remember the picture of Finch reflecting in the green paint with a painters suit on and holding a Corona? Yeah, that picture is what sealed the deal for me. This guy obviously had the skills, talent, was also a painter, and he was located only a few hours away. Is this too good to be true? I had to go talk to this guy soon and basically plead my case or story to him. Maybe he would be generous enough to consider helping me out. Just a few month later at the 2010 Peach State event that very thing happened. I talked with Brian a good hour or two throughout the day and in the end he agreed to take on my project. This to me was a huge leap of faith and spoke volumes of his confidence in building because at that point he hadn't even seen my car in person yet. At the end of that day I think I could hear church choir music and see the sunlight shining down between the clouds. This is really going to happen. Hallelujah! Can I getta AMEN! :angel:
For the next four months I did my best to get the subframe and front end completed on my car before Brian's schedule became free. If he can knock out an entire car in this amount of time then surely I can at least get a front end done in that amount of time. Well it was close but I did finish by November and true to his word Finch got my car to his shop to start breaking it down and giving it a good go over. Considering the cars he has taken on before that sheetmetal work I had done in the 90s really helped with the overall effort Brian needed to do. Nothing would have slowed him down anyway. I have seen and heard of the cars Mark Turner can find for Brian. But what might turn out to be a couple month project with some shops can be knocked out by Brian in a few weeks or sometimes days. I don't care what he says...he doesn't sleep. He is not human! He is a Pro-Touring machine. The work that has been done to my car in two months has left me speechless sometimes. Heck, the first panel that actually got final paint almost brought a tear to my eye. You guys with love for these cars know how it feels. Priceless. Even Mom and Dad have been thoroughly impressed with how the pictures of the car look. Having Mom say the car looks better than it did new is pretty cool and a true testament to Brian's work.
During the last few months I didn't put together a project thread on my car since you guys have seen so many of this type muscle car. And I was definitely going to stick to my budget which in the end might not produce a car you guys have grown so accustomed to seeing on here. But for every one of those type builds I thought there would have to be at least a hundred guys shooting for that middle ground. You know, the readers rides section or something similar. So the longer I thought about it the more I realized how much I have learned and simply enjoyed looking at pictures of everyone's build in the forum. There is something for everyone and every budget in here. Plus once I saw the work Finch produced on my car I thought it deserves to be seen. I think the Crazy Canadian Albert and Mark Turner can back me up on this one. So with that I set out trying to recover some long lost photos and tell you my story. Over the next few weeks I will be posting pictures of the restoration process that I have gone through throughout the years and then eventually catch back up to the progress Finch has already made with the car to date. And along the way maybe now I can actually help someone else out in the forum with questions about builds such as mine. In the end I would definitely say to you guys that sometimes good things come to those who wait. With the car now having a solid foundation and soon to have paint after 15 years of trying, I feel the rest will just fall into place. Once I reach that goal then you guys can all start influencing me over to a full blown LS swap and four link suspensions. MmHmm.
So with that I say a heartfelt Thanks to all of you in the Pro-Touring community for the help, Thanks to Brian Finch for helping make this dream become a reality, and most of all...Thanks Mom! :worship:
KUSI
The pictures below are one of the only remaining photos I have of the original Burnished Brown paint job. After that the photos show my gray "Primero" as it was referred to in high school. The car had been hit in the front fender because it spent its life parked in the street as you see it. The insurance company paid for the fender to be replaced and gave a few hundred dollars extra for touch up paint. Touch up 20 year old paint? So with that we were convinced into having the car paint removed and covered in primer. Big Mistake! It helped accelerate the rust process even further. Live and learn!