After allowing Ford a two and a half model year head start in the Pony Car Wars, Chevrolet finally provided the Mustang with its once and future arch rival in the form of the 1967 Camaro.
While its curvy coke bottle lines obviously came from the styling team responsible for the swoopy second generation rear-engined Corvair, the Camaro was a thoroughly conventional front-engined auto.
It featured a unit body aft of the firewall with a bolt-on subframe that carried the motor and front suspension (and which it shared with the Chevy II/Nova). This shared commonality with Chevy's compact, much like the Mustang's Falcon-derived genes, served to keep the costs down and the profit margins high for the new sporty coupe.
The Butternut Yellow convertible in the photos has the RS, for "Rally Sport", package. This was mostly a trim and accessory package, and got the buyer headlights hidden behind vacuum-operated doors, different taillights, and RS badges and extra chrome trim.
The fender badges say this one's got the 250 cubic inch inline six cylinder, which is a bump up from the base 230 cid six. The twenty extra cubic inches boosted power from 140 to 155 SAE gross bhp.
While the big-motored SS Camaros and GT Mustangs get all the ink, the bulk of pony car sales have always been what enthusiasts derisively term "secretarymobiles"; sporty-looking cars with thrifty drivetrains and reasonable MSRPs, bought by people who just want a cool looking car and aren't yet necessarily worried about hauling a family around. The '67 RS convertible here would have started at $2,914, with the bigger six only bumping the price a little.
Car Life tested a base coupe with the 250cid six and three-speed manual. It managed an 11.4 second 0-60 run and cleared the quarter in eighteen and a half seconds at 75mph. Top speed was recorded as 104 miles per hour.
The one in the photos was snapped with a Nikon Coolpix P7000 back in July of 2016.
The '67-68 Camaro is one of my all-time favorites. I actually bought a '68 convertible back in 1986, but it was a basket case and much, much more of a project than I should've taken on. I sold it 11 years later without ever having licensed or driven it. 8^(
ReplyDeleteThey really have great looks.
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