[GMMG_Murphy]

Hey, I finally found the time to join this great site. This is my second post and I have been to this site a hundred times, just been busy building a few Camaros. Love it . . . and look forward to answering some of your questions . . .[img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/beers.gif[/img] Cheers from this Irishman.

All cars have little glitches, Some people call it character, I call it Murphy's Law. Anyway, The cars we have been building have stock F-body trannys in them. I am not worried, neither are our GM counterparts. They will honor all powertrain warranties, even if you have the Phase 2 or 3 engine packages. Obviously, they will look at what is wrong and what caused it. They will probably call us if it is a Phase 3 - 427, but between the two of us, I don't think you have anything to worry about.

All of our employees drive these fourth gen F-bodies and run them through the ringer with the latest and greatest high performance stuff available. It is amazing to see how well these cars hold up to 500, and 600 plus HP and TQ. Both Mike and Ron from GMMG took their Camaros to a Mustang shootout at a dragstrip, and for fun, the mustang guys allowed some Camaros in to show them how fast their fords were. Ron made it to the final round between the two fastest cars there, and took on the baddest mustang out there with his 2000 Camaro and ripped a 10.84 and beat the Mustang by 2 car lengths. It is his daily driver with Nitrous and has a stock rear end and tranny. He is making it now a serious Drag car by putting a 12 bolt in it and shooting for 700HP.

Anyone can abuse their cars and trash them, but if you treat it like it should be, and don't get me wrong, my guys are not easy on their cars, but it is taking care of your vehicle/investment and treating it like it is yours (not GM's, just because it has a warranty), and you will find that it will take some serious abuse, or fun as we call it.

All of our cars are built to have fun in and if you choose to collect them, sell or trade them, well . . ., I added some spice to them for that as well. Dale Earnhardt was a serious gear head, car nut. He told me that Don Yenko was the reason he wanted to buy a Chevy Dealership. For years he wanted to build cars like Don did and he finally got his business, Dale Earnhardt Inc., running on it's own, so he could enjoy some other fun stuff, like driving the C5R Corvettes, and his dream (and mine) finally came true when he hooked up with GMMG, to build HIS dream Camaro, the Intimidator SS. He told me that he was tired of those Jack Roush Mustangs, coming over to his shop and doing a little wheel squeel and running back to the Roush shop. Dale wanted a car of his own that he could drive and sell to others that would enjoy the ride like he did. He did plan to take his car (Intimidator #3) over to the Roush shop when he got it and do a hell of a burnout in front of Jack's shop and then proudly stroll back down the road (He died a week or so before the first group of numbered cars were shipped, but Teresa told me that she was going to go over to Roush's shop to do the burnout for Dale in his car). Dale even challenged Jack to bring out his Stage 3 Roush Mustang so he could kick his butt with his stock Intimidator SS, with 381HP (that's the three cars he owned - #3 Busch car, #8 Junior's car and #1 Park's car). He was amazing to work with, and the ZL1 concept was built by me as a B4C police car because Dale wanted it that way. He reminded me that the police cars back then came out of the COPO department as well.

I had the Prototype ZL1 car in Daytona for the Rolex 24hr weekend and showed it to Dale. He said, "I want 50 of these!!" I told him we were going to make only 69, and his exact words were, "Fred Gibb ordered 50 ZL1's in '69 and I want 50!!" "OK, Dale . . . Not a problem, I said." He died a week later.

Ironically, for him, almost 35 of the 69 cars were allocated from his dealership as Berger and Tom Henry didn't have enough allocation for the Camaros. In fact all of the Berger ZL1's except I think 3, have Dale Earnhardt Chevrolet on the GM sticker, instead of Berger Chevy. It is hard to imagine what would have been, if he was still alive, at least for this ZL1 project, because he was VERY interested and knowledgeable of the Supercars from the 60's and early 70's, and a huge fan of Yenko, Berger, Baldwin Motion, Fred Gibb, Etc.

SOOOOO, there is much more to the Intimidator SS cars than just a few badges, stickers and some serious HP added. The man behind those cars was one of US. He told me that he wanted to see these cars being driven by their owners, and those of you that have one, know how awesome they are. Dale also said that if the magazines wanted to do an article on the Intimidator SS and the Berger SS cars, both past and present, that he would hold his own with both Matt and Dale Berger, because he would be able to talk about the old cars and speak for his hero Don Yenko and for the new cars talk about the new Intimidator SS. Like I said, SOOOOO sad that he is gone . . .