1969 Big Block SS ex Drag Race Camaro
 

Just completed purchase and delivery. Some may have heard of this car before. Raced from day 1 until 1992, when it was parked in the original owners yard. Never registered for the street until 2007 when it was bought by the second owner.

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1969 Van Nuys big block SS. Ordered as an L34 column shift M40 car by original owner in Phoenix, AZ from Courtesy Chevrolet in December 1968 and delivered in January 1969. Original drivetrain long gone, currently has a 427 and a TKO600. Original BV rear axle. Was delivered with an SS hood which was replaced with a cowl hood. Radio delete, standard black interior and endura bumper.

Original color was code 71 LeMans Blue, received a panel paint job when new.

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It was repainted a generic blue color in the 80’s.

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The car has gone through a few owners since it was again sold in 2014 but as luck would have it still retains it’s desert faded paint. The contingency stickers were removed and it’s front original XT wheels and the custom 15 X10s out back were lost. More importantly the original POP and broadcast sheets and a bunch of other documentation including run cards from several dragstrips and the old Califormia off highway registration docs managed to remain with the car. Also included was a book chronicling the history of the car, from it’s early days of racing to it’s resurrection from the California desert.

Sitting in the garage the first night in it’s new home

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Made an interesting discovery when removing the old license plate:

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Very cool, What neat history. Thanks for sharing..

Gregg

Great story on this beautiful 69 Camaro. Enjoy your project.

Looks like a car from a high performance dealership with a lot of stories to tell. Great score!

Looking forward to hearing what you’re going to do with it. Sounds like you appreciate that desert faded Lemans blue paint, and I couldn’t agree more.

First step is making sure it's mechanically sound. After that the interior needs a bit of work. I will do my best to preserve the paint, I need to do some research on how to maintain it without losing it's originality.

The second and third picture was great lakes drag strip union grove wisconsin

Book that was included with the car along with all the original documentation

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HAYWARD DRAG CLUB rings a bell with me for some reason.

Hayward Wisconsin??? Quite a haul from there to race at Union Grove, but who knows. IIRC there's a Hayward California, too, up in the SF Bay area. :dunno:

Helmut,

Per the OP's post, that's not the original LB paint....

"It was repainted a generic blue color in the 80’s."

It was originally owned by Vic Hobbs, who raced out of the west coast. He won a Wally in 1984 but I don't think it was with this car. There are a couple of pictures of the car up on a hauler so a trip out to Union Grove is not out of the question.I have found a few references of him racing in the midwest.

Correct. I am curious if any of the original racing colors lurk under the coating of paint and primer.

Yup, that's my old car, I was the second owner (and so far the second longest only to Vic himself) and it was me that found it in the desert and got it back on the road. That is a shame about the XTs and the 15x10 rears. Vic was a pleasure to chat with and it was hard to get him to let go of it. That was indeed Hayward, CA and I purposely left that fragile sticker on the rear license plate bracket. And an interesting thing about those two XT rims was that the X and T were on either side of the valve stem holes... very curious. And they were undated as I recall. Those are not the XTs in the vintage photos either; he dug those up out of his backyard when I asked about them and they cleaned up. You can see a shot of all the rims that I received with the car. I asked if he had the VE3 jack load rest bracket, but it was stolen he said. I also still have those funky caps that are on the front in those vintage pics too - funny story he told me on those: as you know most tracks made you remove trim rings and caps and what not, but he liked the look of caps on the front so he chose those as they're held on with the lug nuts... he said he used to get a kick out of the tech guys trying to pop them off by hand for him...

Did you get the helmet and the Courtesy Plate frame and the original dealer paper tag that I found in the trunk - and the original lug wrench? The red "sold" tag and the salesman's card? Those were also neat pieces. The keys I received were original too, with the knockouts still on the ring but I re-keyed the locks and used new keys as the code on the Broadcast sheet is out there...

There's a patch panel I put in on the driver's side rear floor pan due to a lost driveshaft during a staging lane "incident". and I patched the transmission tunnel as he had several transmissions in it throughout the years. And yes, those are SuperTraps that he ran on it... have no idea how that'd sound and when I questioned him, he liked that you could "tune it" by adding or removing plates...

The emblem holes were filled for the panel paint job and the original front spoiler with the artist's name stenciled on was gone when I found it.

The last photo is the first day I had it as my place. I put four rollers on it to get it home after digging it out by calling AAA, "my car won't start"...

That car was a pleasure and I'm sure you're going to have fun with it too!

Enjoy,
Anthony

Raced with Vic many times in division 7. At the time he ran a wagon. Nice guy.

He really was, it was surprising that his family called me to tell me the sad news of his passing nearly ten years after he sold me his favorite car.

I reached out to Anthony when I was in the process of buying it and he was kind enough to fill in a lot of details that often get lost through the years.

Yes, all that stuff has managed to stay with the car through all the change of hands.

I know you were concerned that the paint might have been clear coated to preserve it's patina, but I'm happy to report that is not the case.

There is a pretty nice tribute thread to Vic on the Class Racer forum when he had his cancer diagnosis.

Looks like you got the wheels that Jackie installed after he removed the contingency stickers and buffed it I guess. Someone told me it was cleared, but just polished I guess. Good, that was certainly patina.

Great story and docs on that car.:biggthumpup:

I got both the Halibrand replicas that Jackie bought and the Torq-Thrusts that Mike put on. I was pleased to discover that the Jackie that Anthony referenced was actually Jackie Howerton, which only adds to the history. I found Jackie's phone number on an old receipt and gave him a call. He filled in some of the other blanks. He redid the suspension to make it a bit more drivable and added some traction bars off of a 57 Chevy he had and also replaced the exhaust system. There was some damage to the rear passenger floorpan when a driveshaft let loose. It had been patched it up, but Jackie is a perfectionist and it always bugged him knowing that the patch was there. He had so many other projects going on that he couldn't find time to do the repair. He didn't consider himself a Camaro guy and never quite gelled with the car.

All great stuff...thanks for sharing.


Also Anthony is good people (as you have already found out!) :)

x2!

Thanks everyone. This site has been an incredible resource and I'm glad I can finally contribute.

That's one nice project. We're looking at a '72 Camaro as next project. Here to gain some good ideas.

there is a couple old Hayward drag club members i see around at car shows by me ill ask if they have any info on the car. i used race at the old Fremont drag strip and would see that Hayward drag club decal all the time. cool car congrats

I've been away from the car for a week, but got back today to finish up the rear brakes. Had a leaking rear brake cylinder. There seems to be two different brake cylinders, most of the parts catalogs show the ones with an external rubber boot. Mine has a boot that sort of sits flush with ends of the brake cylinder. I was able to wash enough grime off of the original to bring it in to and sort out what I needed. I'm now on a first name basis with the local Napa counter. He came back with what I needed, rang it up at $14.98. For two. Got the brakes bled and functional, time for a test drive. Brakes work, but now the generator light is staring me in the face. Got home and broke the old Fluke meter out. Alternator seems ok. The voltage regulator looked like it was probably the original, and at $20 it was a good gamble. A trip back to the parts store 5 minutes later and it's in and the light is out. Forgot how nice some of these old cars are to work on.

Love your car, that 69 is soooo cool!

Keep all of those old parts that you are taking off.