69 Camaro Drag Car

[Charles]

The Al Olster 1969 Camaro was white with a black interior. The broad stripe down the middle of the car was medium blue. The Camaro was ordered by Al and took four months to arrive. February was about the time the COPO Camaros started showing up at the dealers? The back panel was black between the tail lights, but the Jenkins 1969 SS/C car also had that paint effect and Jenkins had one of his 1970 1/2 Camaro Pro Stockers painted that way. Even the panel below the rear bumper was painted black on the 70 1/2 Camaro. The motors were painted black and the gas tank painted white... The front grill on the 1969 Jenkins SS/C car was black. That was the made up ZL-1 car that started out as a L-78. Rather than waiting 4 months, Al could have picked up a L-78 Camaro as the starting point for his SS/EA car; instead he waited...for a real 427 Camaro?

[Stefano]

Very few L72 COPOs other than Yenkos were built in January,however L72 Iron Blocks were readily available over the counter for those who wanted to build there own 427 Camaro.

[Charles]

Thanks Stefano for the details. It is unclear if the Al Olster Camaro began as a 396 or a 427. The Camaro had SS emblems and "427" was also put on the cowl hood. Al Olster was the runner-up with Dave Strickler in the WCS Super Stock points in 1970. When two of the Jenkins cars went to Dallas for the finals they had installed the drive train from Al Olster's car in the Strickler SS/J car. The NHRA officials would not allow Dave Strickler to race the car because he had not run an automatic in the car at any of the WCS meets. Bill Jenkins ran into the same problem with his SS/C Camaro that arrived with a trick automatic transmission. For the same reason he could not run with the automatic setup. He converted the car back to a 4 speed but could not come close to the record that had been set by Arlen Vanke. While Dave Strickler had gone 10.97 there was the potential to go even faster because the chassis setup for the 4 speed SS/J car was not the same as Al's automatic Camaro chassis setup.
Later 1970 would turned out to be a pretty good year for Dave Strickler when he became the first Pro Stock Champion in Division One. He accomplished this with the spare Jenkins Competition 1970 1/2 Camaro. Jenkins ended up tied for fourth place with John Petrie.

[Salvatore]

Charles, You got the Grump group down pat! You must be an old Division 1 racer. I think when they took Olsters drive train out of his car to go into Stricklers, was the first time they removed the 302 for the big block. Daves car started out as an early 1969 Z/28 with a flat hood. Saw him run at Cecil and Maplegrove with that car often. I don't think the 302 made it back into the car. Sam [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/[/img]