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ebinmaine

Interesting piece of '67 Camaro history

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Jeff-C175

Very cool!  I loved the 67 model year.  The Nova SS was awesome.

 

A friend had a 67 Camaro (maybe a 68?) that he 'bumped into' a tree with the front end.  He found the same year Firebird at a local scrap yard that was wrecked in the rear.  Turns out that everything bolted right up!  He did have to 'massage' the fenders to line the door seams up.  When it was all finished it was a Firebird comin' at ya, and a Camaro goin' away.  Too bad it was a 6 cylinder car...

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ri702bill

Eric:

Great article - Smokey was a great race car builder who fractured almost EVERY rule in the rulebook.

He discovered that the Hudson Hornet motor developed more torque IF you ran it backwards. He had a custom camshaft ground with a mirrored profile - even had the "Testicular Fortitude" to have the FACTORY part number on it. Made a fan with reverse pitch, rewound the starter to run backwards.

Perhaps his greatest achievement was his 1967 15/16th scale Chevelle to compete in the NASCAR Sportsman Series - every panel on the car was massaged to be a wee bit smaller. Because of him NASCAR went to the Roofline profile inspection plates.

My alltime favorite was once (then the rule was added) he had a car in qualifying that had no rear wheel cutouts on the body. He figured it would be more aerodynamic and it was. The other Teams laughed when they saw it - how is that fool going to change rear tires during the race they said. Once they qualified up near the front, the crew cut out the wheel openings. There was a protest filed by other teams - Smokey replied " NASCAR allows us to cut our own desired wheel opening shape - they just did not say when!!"

Edited by ri702bill
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ebinmaine
8 minutes ago, Jeff-C175 said:

Very cool!  I loved the 67 model year.  The Nova SS was awesome.

 

A friend had a 67 Camaro (maybe a 68?) that he 'bumped into' a tree with the front end.  He found the same year Firebird at a local scrap yard that was wrecked in the rear.  Turns out that everything bolted right up!  He did have to 'massage' the fenders to line the door seams up.  When it was all finished it was a Firebird comin' at ya, and a Camaro goin' away.  Too bad it was a 6 cylinder car...

Back around 1990 or a little later my father got ahold of a car for my younger sisters to use. 

Half Mercury lynx and half Ford escort. 

 

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ri702bill

And Smokey got fined for another violation - to add fuel capacity beyond the mandatory 22 gallon fuel tank, he ran a QUARTER MILE of fuel line coiled up inside the car. Another new rule change ....

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ri702bill

Yup, seen a few of those mixed model years bodies when I was turning wrenches on a 1/4 mile asphalt track car. The basic body on all 55 thru 57 Chevies was the same - 57 nose on a 55 body was not uncommon. My favorite was the 55 3 door - a 2 door on the drivers side and 4 door sheet metal on the passenger side, it was all they had to work with after a wreck.

Bill

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ebinmaine
4 minutes ago, ri702bill said:

favorite was the 55 3 door - a 2 door on the drivers side and 4 door sheet metal on the passenger side

THAT would be an eye catcher at shows!

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ri702bill

Not exactly show quality - we are talking Saturday night bumpin' & bangin' door to door rubbin' & racin' here!!

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Lee1977
9 hours ago, ri702bill said:

And Smokey got fined for another violation - to add fuel capacity beyond the mandatory 22 gallon fuel tank, he ran a QUARTER MILE of fuel line coiled up inside the car. Another new rule change ....

He didn't break the 22 gallon fuel tank rule.  He found a way around it. They didn't say what size or how much fuel line could be used. 

Smoket-Yunick did the same to other car manufacturers. If he worked on a part and they didn't come get it he sold it. Did it to Ford also sold a couple of manifolds to a drag racer

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8ntruck

Didn't Smokey use the roll cage as a fuel line for a while?

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Howie

I think he ran all that fuel line up thru it!

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