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Words: Tommy Parry Photos: Mike
When you’ve got a pristine ‘67 Camaro on your hands and you want to put it under the knife, you’ve got to have a serious amount of self-confidence in your abilities; destroying one of these beauties is a crime punishable by death in some circles. Well, once the economy came around in 2012, Mike took this dusty beauty and started tearing it apart, formulating a long to-do list that included quite a bit of media blasting.
Well, after spending much of its life in the South, the Camaro had acquired plenty of nasty rust all over the body. The fenders and front end were toast, and though gorgeous from the outside, it needed a bunch of work, so Mike took the body to Professional Cryogenics for media blasting. That revealed bad quarters, outer wheel wells, floor pans, trunk pans, rear tail panel and a bad roof skin, so he took it to C. Hopkins Rod & Customs for a second car's worth of new sheet metal. With a coat of black primer and some mini-tubs in the rear, he had a workable platform.
Then Mike turned his attentions to the rear end of the Camaro. A friend provided a fabricated Moser 9” rear axle setup for the RideTech Air Bar, and Mike bolted on a set of Afco coilovers to give it that extra bit of roadholding.
Unfortunately, there were still a few issues with the bodywork that needed to be sorted out. After discovering the extent of the rust issues around the firewall, Mike made a drastic decision. He cut the entire offending piece out, fabbed up his own replacement and sanded it down to look stockish. Not a bad way to solve the problem, but now his Camaro was 75% new sheetmetal.
And with that, Mike could focus on the engine bay. After mocking up the 2-bolt 400 and installing a Comp Xtreme Fuel Injection 292XFI cam, he bought a second-hand pair of coated Stainless Works headers, but there was a brief snag - they didn’t fit his subframe. A quick call to Speedtech got him a set of well-fitting headers as well as a steering shaft kit, which got his build just that much further up the road. Figuratively speaking, of course - it was still spending most of its time in the shop.
After a quick relocation of the swaybars and some adjustment to the rear end, Mike had a bonafide roller and it could move up the road, provided it was pushed. It was around then that he began pondering colors to give the once-orange Camaro some real zest. Several sketchbooks later, he had the car primered and pulled the trigger.
That color, inspired by the Green Goblin from the Spiderman franchise, is one not seen on many Camaros. A lush blue-green mix with a few layers of clearcoat draw the eye in wherever it goes. With a black powerstripe running down the hood, Mike had a bold color combination that really changed based on the amount of sunlight shown on it. In the dark, it appeared olive green like Steve McQueen’s Mustang from Bullitt, but in the light of day, it was a mouth-watering sea green that would make this masterpiece a mainstay at any gathering.
Though Mike has to tidy up a few loose ends, we’re sure the final iteration of this project will be completely mesmerizing. We wait with bated breath.
