The Supercar Registry - Jon Mello's 67 Z/28 Survivor

" Sorry this one is late....Photobucket was down with system problems.John has another very interesting Z/28 that we will feature also"

Jon Mello’s 1967 Z28 “survivor”

I bought this car from the original owner in 1998. He bought it new from Mustang Chevrolet in San Angelo, Texas on July 31, 1967. The original owner was a motorcycle racer and told me he bought this car with the idea of doing some racing with it. Once he got the car, he decided he did not have the money to make it fully competitive so he pretty much left it alone. He did do some street racing, with the occasional trip to the local drag strip (Wall Dragway). I don’t know what he raced against but supposedly the only car that beat him was a Stage 1 Buick. You can tell the car was meant for racing. The car has the cowl plenum air cleaner and the factory headers. It also is a factory radio and heater delete car. This is the only documented ’67 Z28 to have that combination of options (or non-options). The car also has the J56 HD metallic brakes, 4.10 posi gears, HD battery and is the only known Z with the HD 61-amp optional alternator. It is equipped with the very rare shoulder belts and is supposed to have headrest seats but the factory screwed up and did not install them. They are shown on the window sticker and cowl tag but on the sales invoice, it shows a credit. The headrests were shipped with the car but there were no slots in the seats to install them. I attribute that to the fact that the car is less than 60 cars from the end of production and maybe things were getting a little lax at that point. The car was taken off the road in the early ‘70s and I think that was due to the gas crisis. It was not brought out again as far as I know until the late 80s and very little mileage has been put on since that time. It has all its original paint except for the header panel and lower valence (I still have those pieces). The original exhaust manifolds came with the car and they are like brand new because the headers went on immediately once he took delivery. The plug wires, radiator hoses, and distributor cap were all original but I took them off and put them away in a box. Even the shocks are the originals. I have left those on but it sure would ride and handle a little better with some new ones. I did have to rebuild the brakes as it had the typical leaky front calipers. I have the original boxes for the cowl plenum air cleaner and the rally wheel caps. The trim rings and caps had never been installed as the car got 5-spoke ET mags pretty quickly. The color combination is very unusual to say the least, Mountain Green with a gold standard interior. It is not everybody’s cup of tea, but I like it. It is the only known Z with that color combo. I have heard of some plain-Jane cars in that color scheme though. All-in-all, I really love this car. It is hard to beat the originality and I really like the way it is optioned. I try to respect the originality of the car but I also like to enjoy driving it to some of the local shows. When you nail the gas and run through the gears on an early Z (even with the crummy Muncie shifter) that really brings a smile to your face. It is hard justifying leaving a car like this in the garage.
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