1969 Camaro ZL-1 #51

[William]

You need some perspective on Chevrolet in the ‘60s. Everyone should read these books:

Chevrolet = Racing?

By Paul Van Valkenburgh. He worked in Chevrolet R & D in the ‘60s. In the 320 pages there is virtually no mention of drag racing. It is briefly noted: “In the field of drag racing Chevrolet has been even less concerned with any specific individual or team activities.” They did do some evaluation on one of Jenkins cars but didn’t learn much from it. Chevy had tremendous involvement with stock car racing, T/A racing with Penske/Donohue, sports car racing with Jim Hall/Chaparral.

The author had some involvement with Tony DeLorenzo, at the time an amateur racer. Never mind that his father was a GM VP, he had to buy his L-88 Corvette from a Chevy dealer. Their normal parts source was junkyards. For the ’71 season they bought a pair of Bud Moore Mustangs. Quoting the book: “Just how much Chevrolet racing support can there be when two such insiders buy Fords to race?”

Best Damn Garage in Town

By Smokey Yunick. 640 pages, zero mention of drag racing. The consummate insider, Smokey was there at the birth of NASCAR and was involved with R & D well into the ‘70s. There are some amusing comments about the Hemi 302. A constant theme throughout the book is how cheap and difficult Chevy was to deal with.

The Unfair Advantage

By Mark Donohue. There is no better source for perspective on what dealing with Chevrolet was like. The Penske/Chevrolet relationship was so bad by the end of ’69 they switched to AMC Javelins for the 1970 season, a ballsy move considering Penske was a Chevrolet dealer. Same theme as Smokey: cheap and difficult to deal with. When their ’67 Camaro was damaged in a trailer wreck it was rebuilt with junkyard parts. When they wanted Chevy to air freight improved engine parts direct to a track Piggins refused stating “We aren’t involved in racing.” All they did was win back to back championships for Chevy but couldn’t get someone to send them some parts.

On a Clear Day You Can See GM

By John De Lorean. No specific mention of racing. But when De Lorean took over as Chevy General Manager February 1969 it was in poor condition, losing money and market share.

The Gibb Chevrolet/ZL-1 Camaro story is well-known. In interviews many years ago Gibb stated the option price more than doubled by the time the cars were being delivered. He couldn’t pay for them and if his store was GMAC financed, he could only sell them under GMAC supervision. When the depth of the problem was realized Chevy took 37 of them back to Norwood for re-distribution to other dealers. When they still did not sell, Chevy granted discounts to get rid of them. The #3 ZL-1 was discounted and finally sold July 1970. At no time did Gibb ever state that anyone was given a ZL-1 Camaro. His #1 race car was paid for, Harrell’s #15 race car was paid for. Bill Jenkins went to a dealer and bought a ’69 Camaro SS L-78, later installing a ZL-1 engine from a production ZL-1 Camaro.

It is entirely possible a dealer may have provided a ZL-1 Camaro to a racer under some kind of arrangement other than outright purchase. Chevrolet had no interest in drag racing. Given all the history by people who were there it is impossible for me to believe Chevrolet "gave" anyone a ZL-1 Camaro.

[markjohnson]

Some great books mentioned here! The "Chevrolet-Racing?" book is rare and can be expensive and hard to find sometimes but it is a great read, even if they don't get into very much Drag Racing detail, which was a little bit of a disappointment for me. The 3-Volume Smokey Yunick book set is an absolute MUST-HAVE item for any and all Chevrolet fans(or ANY racing fan for that matter). I actually enjoyed reading his World War II exploits in the first book than the racing stories! One of the books mentions several neat inventions that Smokey came up with like a bellhousing supercharger that used the pressure plate as an impellar with a hidden pipe up to the air cleaner but my favorite item was his clutch-less Hurst shifter. Get this.....it was a slightly larger Hurst Shifter that through a simple system of cams & cables, disengaged and re-engaged the clutch as the shifter was operated! Does that sound neat or what!?