If my "career" is any indicator, I've never cared much for the straight path in life. Loose, sideways, and shouting seems to describe my adventure through timespace. Shouldn't your car similarly reflect your spirit?
I think "Yes." Which is why pony cars and muscle cars never appealed much to me. Sure I heard all the stories about hopped-up Roadrunners, flat-out Mustangs, and mile-long burnouts, recounted like war stories at the family BBQs.
But when I grew up in the '90s, I simply never saw the heroes of those old war stories in the world. Even in the rural farming town where I grew up, a place where vintage iron was worshipped like a deity in those six days between church, these cars were never just... driving around, raisin' hell.
Sure on Summer Saturdays the old chariots shined like rebel diamonds in the early morning sun, parked at the edge of the paved lot near McDonald's.
As kids we admired them sat there, gleaming and static, and we poked around at the silent big blocks and stared at our teeth in the finely polished chrome manifolds. After an hour or two there'd be a sensible staccato romp on the gas pedal when one Boomer Chariot left and another followed. It seemed, even thirty years ago, the owners of these car had already let their lust for misbehavior lapse.
A generation simply acquired the fetishized objects of their youth and wrapped them in cellophane. So young Kyle never yearned for cars like the '68 Camaro he'd own decades later. And I fear something similar will happen to my son; These old stars will fade to dim smudges, loosed on the world only for brief moments between polishing passes with the proverbial diaper.
Let's change that.
You've maybe thumbed through parts one and two of our Camaro series already. If you haven't, it's still early days and there's time to catch up. We've covered the origins of the car and its current state (an empty husk with funky stripes), but let's set some end goals, and provide context for where this heap is headed.
Race cars. Race cars are anti-static. They do not sit in a McDonald's parking lot. They're rough and brash and active. Unapologetic.
If you need more reasons: Good ones sound like this. And do slidey raunchy things like this.
Our Camaro won't likely race wheel to wheel (Those duties are reserved for a BMW-powered Corvette and an E30 spec car, also co-owned with my partner in the Camaro). HOWEVER, we want to bottle the spirit of great racing Camaros and steal more than a few tricks from their tool bag. With some help from old legends and new ones, racing cues will endow our car with a purposeful look, handling chops, and a track-star's unrepentant character.
Here's some touchstones we'll use for inspiration:
THE BIG, OBVIOUS ONE
Yeah, it's the North Star. Our sun. Perhaps the most-meaningful Camaro ever built, depending on which philosopher you're talking to at the end of the bar. The lede image from this series was a dead giveaway.
Here's a piece about driving the Penske/Donohue Camaro, penned by our friend Zach Bowman for Road & Track magazine. I return to this piece probably three times a year because it fills soul. I can't hope to define the magic of this car in a better way, so grab a mug of coffee and enjoy that story.
The car went up for auction this year, and you can read more about it (and look at some great photos) here.
While the infamous Penske Camaro will live in the back of our minds, our Camaro won't go like-for-like, but rather borrow elements from Trans-Am racing of the period, like the series' spec 15x8" wheels for the car, and the tire sizes which worked best to provide enough grip while maintaining handling balance. In this case 235/60s up front and 255/60s out back.
We won't have the budget to drop our Camaro's shell off at Lockheed for acid dipping, but we'll embark on a weight-savings regimen you would've found on race cars of the era, trying to hone in on a sub-3000-lb. curb weight and roughly 520-hp, per the specs of the Penske car.
However, we don't simply want to rehash the already established legends in this series. We're here to turn over some new stones too.
The Euro Trash
Your eyes doth not deceive. That is an Ovaltine graphic. Weird huh?
But maybe not as weird as seeing Euromesh wheels on the very image of Sixties Americana. It's like a bald eagle wearing Uggs.
What you see here is a racing Camaro of a different stripe, one of many that did battle in Europe's great temples. The graphics say it all:
It's a chapter in the Camaro racing story that I don't think gets much shine. These things absolutely handled corners, well enough to scrap with Porsches and BMWs and other faffy euro cars on their home soil. That's thanks to the "Group 2" portion found in the above text.
The Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) launched Group 2 in 1959, using the class moniker to describe Touring Cars with a minimum of 1,000 production over a year-long span. In turn, the British Saloon Car Championship opened to Group 2 cars from 1961-195 and from '70-73.
Trans-Am fans will remember that Group 2 cars ran through the 1972 season to more-than-moderate success: the Alfas and Porsches especially. That cross-pollination worked both ways and produced some absolutely astounding racing, and absolutely iconic moments, especially when the cross-Atlantic tickets were stamped in both directions. Here's one from Spa:
Our Camaro will blend these identities, borrowing from antiquity and modernity, from Trans-Am and the Euro racers. We'll hatch a dorky tryhard racing livery for the car—hand-painted like it would've been in '68—and go chasing after Porsches and BMWs and Alfas on the race tracks and backroads of this great nation, as it was in the glory days before the McDonald's parking lot, reviving and sharing the spirit of great racing Camaros along the way.
In coming editions of Camaro vs. World, we'll pick up the tale of one courageos privateer Camaro that braved Le Mans, and pick up some suspension tips from the heroes who are still racing these Sixties machines flat out in one of the greatest and most-interesting racing series on earth.
We'll have some actual progress to report on the engine front shortly, with suspension, tires, and brakes heating up on the back burner, plus interviews and features from the world that'll shape this project.
More Camaro vs. World to come soon.
