1969 Chevrolet Camaro RS/Z28

By my lights, this is the epitome of the first generation Camaro: A 1969 model with the Rally Sport appearance package to get those slick-looking hidden headlights, and the Z28 performance package to get one of the coolest Chevy small blocks ever.

The Z28 package was intended to be a "turnkey track car" for road racing and the 327 V-8 was too big for Trans Am sedan racing, which had a 5.0L displacement limit for the Over 2.0L class. By using a crankshaft with a shorter stroke... essentially a 283 crankshaft in a 327 block ...Chevrolet came up with a very oversquare, high-winding 302 cubic inch motor.

It had 11..0:1 compression ratio, a 780cfm Holley four-barrel carb, solid lifters, an aluminum dual-plane intake manifold, and could be ordered with cold-air Cowl Induction like the Tuxedo Black car in the photos. The resulting motor was very conservatively rated by Chevy at 290 SAE gross horsepower, although the actual number was almost certainly as much as twenty horsepower more, which would have caused vapor lock in insurance salesmen. (">1 horsepower per cubic inch" had become a negative bugbear, actuarially.)

Other race track goodies specific to the Z28 package were power front discs, 15" wheels, and a stiffer suspension. A cross-ram dual-quad intake setup was available as a dealer-installed option on the 302, too.

It wasn't intended as a drag car, but a road racer, nevertheless Popular Hot Rodding took one to the strip and uncorked the headers, getting a 14.6 @ 97mph best run on street tires. With the peaky small block (peak power came at 5200rpm) and a 3.73 rear end, that was pretty good. You could go quicker with 4.88 gears and slicks, but if you really wanted to drag race in a Camaro in '69, it'd be easier to just go ahead and order an SS396 or COPO 427 big block car.

The one in the pictures was photographed in June of 2020 using a Nikon D7000 and a 16-80mm f/2.8-4E VR zoom lens.