1967 Camaro PT project resurrection

[67BrewserSS]

Hi All,

Over the years I’ve gotten invaluable information and inspiration from this forum. It’s been a long time coming but I’m excited to finally start my own build page.

I grew up entrenched in the hobby and was lucky enough to enjoy a couple of restoration projects with my dad growing up. The journey with my Camaro started in 2003 as a 16 year old. My parents gave me a budget of 3k to buy my first car, luckily they gave me the autonomy to actually pick what I wanted regardless of practicality. Finally I found it...my dream car, a 67 camaro. It was essentially a roller that was “ready for paint”. I was sacrificing the short term need of any 16 year old (having a running and driving vehicle) for the long term goal of owning my dream car. In the meantime, I had to scrounge up enough money from mowing lawns and working as a bus boy at the local red lobster to purchase a respectable daily driver. I found a 1979 lifted bronco, it was obnoxious and exactly what I wanted.

For the next several years I invested nearly every cent of my income as a high schooler/ college student on the car. I spent hours in the garage with my buddies and my dad and was finally able to get it to the point of drivability. I’ll never forget the first (and only) time I was able to drive it around the block with open headers. It was exhilarating. Then it was off to college and the project started to stall out. I was still very interested in the build and continued acquiring parts but my time to work on it was much more limited. Through a college internship I was able to save enough to buy a new set of wheels and a built 383 stroker long block. The wheels were 20/18” Boyd Coddington Junkyard Dogs with cast aluminum centers and polished wide lips. At the time they were the coolest wheels I’d seen.

Shortly after, my parents moved from my childhood home into a new house. This unfortunately eliminated free storage and space to work on my project. The car was trailered to a barn in rural Ohio for the foreseeable future. For nearly 8 years she slept in a state of neglect in a barn with a gravel and dirt floor. The project was out of sight and slowly became less of an obsession. Fast forward several years, I’m now a home owner with enough garage space to store and wrench on the car. After years of dreaming I’m now lucky enough to have the resources to build the car right and finally trailered my sleeping beauty home last year.

Time in the barn wasn’t kind to the car. All of the time I spent repainting and rebuilding the front suspension was for naught. The car really slipped into a further state of deterioration. The “paint ready” panels started to rust from the inside underneath all of the bondo. Colonies of rodents took up residence. She’d seen better days. Over the last year I strongly considered the idea of selling and buying another 1967 camaro that was a bit further along and didn’t need any metal work. I knew doing the build correctly would get expensive quickly and thought it would be more of a wise investment to start over on someone else’s stalled out project. I went as far as driving an empty trailer to St. Louis with my dad and brother to buy what I thought was the one. It wasn’t meant to be and I drove home with an empty trailer. On the drive home I started thinking more about just biting the bullet and building mine right. It was my first car after all.

I started doing more research and networking with folks to find a reputable shop to complete the laundry list of metal work. I was able to connect with a guy in southern Kentucky who had previously built nearly 20 first gen camaros. After much discussion and deliberation I decided to pull the trigger and trailered the car down 2 weeks ago. The cars been torn apart and was just sandblasted yesterday. It will start receiving new metal and new life this week, more pics to come. My plans for the car have evolved quite a bit over the years with changing trends and technology. My goal is to have the car in mostly completed running/driving state (phase 1)within the next year. This could be aggressive but hey, you’ve gotta have something to work toward.

Phase 1 plans include:

-DSE mini tubs (currently being installed)

-Full Speedtech Pro-Touring track time package with subframe and 9 inch real with torque arm suspension

-383 NA with t56 6 speed (to me there is something nostalgic about a carbureted v8..but I’ll likely get on the LS train in phase 2 of the build)

-Wilwood 6p front 4p rear

-TMI sport xr interior kit with TMI logos removed

-Vinyl wrap, eventually paint black in phase 2

-Likely starting out with Boyd wheels, phase 2 includes forgeline.



I’ll try to keep this thread up to date over the next years. Below are some pictures from years ago to present state.

Thanks for reading!

-Nick