This car is local to me, has been on the cover of Hotrod, remains a really nice survivor, two owner car.
I rode to high school in my neighbors 72. It did have side pipes! The funny thing is how your tastes change over time. I would have never driven a Camaro back then.....Now, I kinda like em. Makes you nostaligic, I guess.
I have a thought: if you weren't part of it at the time, don't be to harsh. Hindsight is always different than foresight.
I love side pipes on the right car. Reminds me of the 69 Vette 427 convertible I saw sitting on a used lot, right before I turned 16. They wanted $7000 for it, which was probably outrageous in around 1977. I raced home on my bike and begged my dad to buy it. I had been reading every magazine I could find, and I knew that one would be worth something someday. I convinced him to look at it, but sure enough, it was gone the next day.
My story about that Vette reminded me of a 69 Chevelle I found back then with a 427 tri-power. Everybody probably knows about the Baldwin Motion cars that came out of the dealer on the East Coast. Not so much is known about the other similar dealers offering custom souped up Chevy’s back then. This one came out of Kansas City and I would love to figure out the name of that dealership. I remember it had some sort of stripe on it. The seller said it needed a tuneup. I just wanted something I could get in and drive right away, probably pretty rare car
Keeping up with the Jones'es takes no creativity! Your coupe with a big block is my kinda awesome. I never could figure out why a guy that wanted the ultimate ground pounder would start out with a 3,600 lb. GTO or Road Runner. I was always seeking more power, more speed, so all that street roddy stuff was lost on me too. But I've mellowed a lot as I age. Now I'm more interested in reliability than horsepower.
Did you see post #305 in the Camaro/TransAm thread? This says St. Louis but there may be a connection.
For sure the light little coups were faster, got a good story about a near new 65 GTO racing a 389 powered 36-ford coupe with racing slicks. About 1968 my next-door friend's older brother Dave took us 14-year-olds for a ride to downtown Manitowoc with his Maroon 1965 GTO When stopped at the first stop sign this gold Ford coupe with cheater slicks rolls up in the other lane, Coupe left hard and was gone, the 4 speed GTO redlines sat there and spun, We both were impressed thought it was cool as hell. We later found out that the older brother and this guy Al were good friends, this was probably set up to corrupt his little brother, after strict instruction and supervision we were happy to wax the older brothers' cars until we got our own Learned about traction and light car v/s heavy car, this surely helped start my passion for drag racing Factory backed cars in the mid 60s started running mid-size like the Thunderbolt and later Pony cars in classes like M/P and Pro-stock and it sure helped drive a big part of Muscle car sales, they weighed 3300-3600 pounds, but they resembled what was winning. The guys that were able to build the light ground pounders won the heads-up races
Little brother's '69 Road Runner. Painted in '73, then the fella passed away, was in his sister's basement for years. We bought in 2016....and yes, that is a mural of the car on a beach on the rear panel.
I bought my 1971 Camaro SS used in 1973 when I came home from the military. It had a dealer installed 427 crate motor and cost me whopping $2335 then. I owned it for 43 years before I finally decided to sell it. Just ran out of room and couldn't let any of my old hotrods go. It started out as a daily driver, then a dedicated drag car, then sat for years, and finally rebuilt and back to occasional street use.
What new available tires would you run on a set of Daisy mags for that 70's-era look? I've been eyeballing the Firestone Wide Oval Radials from Coker.
The Jalopy Journal
