YENKO'S BEGINNINGS---BENTLEYVILLE, PA.

[kfcarguy]

I find it very surprising that nothing is mentioned about the true beginnings of the Yenko super cars. It was not in Canonsburg,PA. but rather Bentleyville, PA. As a teenager, I watched production Chevys turned into Yenkos at the bottom of the hill that I lived on.
Don Yenko's father owned the dealership on the other side of town. Don would grab one of those car and take it to Red's Garage, where "Red" and his son, Sonny, would transform them.
A few years ago, I went back to my home town for my 50th class reunion.
I was surprised to see Red's Garage still in existence, now owned by Sonny.
I sent several hours talking to Sonny about the early Yenko's. We were joined by JR Zerambo, whose father owned the service station next door.
Both of them were teenagers back in the 60's. Red did most of the mechanicals, Sonny did the painting/stripes/logos on the cars and JR and his father did the "finals" and road tests, many of which were to outrun the fuzz.
Attached pic is of me with Sonny, on the left.

[bbbentley]

I should have been from that town!!?

[markus37]

Yes, Red's did some of the body conversions on Yenko Stingers.Mounting fiberglass deck lids and landau panels, removing trim and painting stripes. I have invoices for 11 of the 1967 Stingers that they did, $50-150 depending on the amount of conversion the customer wanted. Some were " stealth " cars with no stripes.

[markinnaples]

kfcarguy, my brother in law is from Bentleyville, Tim Jackson, and he used to live over the hill from Red's I believe. They live in Allenport now, but I've been to Bentleyville many times. Thanks for that information, great stuff. Are you in the SWPA area still?

[YENKO DEUCE REGISTRY]

The history of the Bentleyville location is covered pretty well in Bob McClurg's book about Yenko. We realize the impact of the Bentleyville location as integral to the success o the Caninsburg location.

[JoeC]

there were a few people who built Yenko cars or helped out.

Yenko Chevy was able to build almost anything including national championship winning SCCA Corvettes but when a load of 50 or 100 cars came in they sometimes needed extra help to meet deadlines

some examples...

in 1965 -66, they had to build 100 1966 Stingers to homologate them for SCCA competition and only had about 4 or 5 weeks to complete them. Yenko would call in racing buddies and local shops to help out

In 1967, Yenko had to build 50 Yenko 427 Super Camaros to homologate them for AHRA Super Stock competition. Yenko had a deal with Dick Harrell to build some of them

Yenko had a deal with Hurst Inc to build some of the Yenko Deuces

there were others who helped with the many builds offsite of the Canonsburg dealership

[jerry67]

Here's an article telling of the Yenko families beginnings in Bentleyville called Central Garage https://www.eastvalleytribune.com/mo...c842b96e7.html
And here is a pic of that garage

[69M22Z]

Cool. Thank you.

[JoeC]

Don and Hope ran the Bentleyville location and lived next to the dealership when they were first married

The Yenko family ran both the Canonsburg and Bentleyville locations for about 10 years about 1949 to 1959

ad showing two locations

Yenko Chevrolet was in Houston PA until the Pike St building was finished