Introduction

[Rat Kulture]

Hello everybody. My name is Rich and I'm from North Jersey. I hang out over at the Nasty Z site, and have lurked on here from time to time.

Happened to come on tonight and saw a post refrenceing Chuck's (Musclcar) day 2 2nd gen Camaro. Chuck is an amazing contributor to that site and has a great knowledge of BM Camaros. His posts have helped me greatly over the years in my own Camaro buildup.

I remember seeing these cars when I was growing up. I saw one up close at the New York National Auto show, had to be about 1971. A friend of mine had his 64 GTO "Rat On" 427 convertable custom entered and he won, although I cant remember if it was at the same time I saw the BM Camaro. I also saw at least one on the streets in Passaic county.

Anyway these cars made a big impression on me, as it did for many of us.

A few years back, when I was looking for a car to restore, a friend that lived in upstate NY came across a 1972 SS 396 Camaro, which we were told sat in a shed for 26 years. We found many cars over the years together, but he called me when he stumbled across this one and told me it was a complete 41,000 mile, numbers matching 4 speed car.

Needless to say, I bought it.

Most would probably say that I should have brought this car back to stock specs, and maybe I should have, but I knew from the get go that I was going to build this into a Motion tribute car.

It is a long 6 year story, but I completed it last May and had lots of fun with it this summer, where I won over 10 trophy's, out of 11 shows I entered. All were 1st place, Best of Show and Best Paint.

Didnt quite know how to approach this board- Would you guys approve or disapprove of my tribute car? I never passed this off as a real BM car and never would, although there hasnt been a show where even hard core BM guys ask me if its the real thing.

I will end here and try to include a link to some pics. I hope you like my work, I did everything except machine the motor and paint the car. The no side stripe is a story unto itself and would be glad to elaborate if asked.

Thanks for reading, Rich http://s195.photobucket.com/albums/z156/...carlisle066.jpg http://s195.photobucket.com/albums/z156/zekefreak http://s195.photobucket.com/albums/z156/...carlisle064.jpg

[mockingbird812]

Hey Rat,

Nice ride. It don't matter if anyone else approves or not, long as your having fun and not trying not to fool anyone. From the sound of all the awards you won, you did it nicely. Welcome aboard and get us some close ups of your handy work.

[Xplantdad]

I agree...show some more pics...

[x Baldwin Motion]

Nice ride, welcome aboard!!

[mudjnky]

Rich, Welcome! We met at the Budweiser United Way show, we have the 68 Camaro tribute car. I can say from seing this car first hand that the pictures do not do it justice.

[Rat Kulture]

Hey Mud! Had a great time that day. Glad you made it home safe. Thanks for the nice words, I will post more pics when I can take it out of the garage. For now maybe I can get some interior and engine shots.

And talk about a neat car- Real deal comes to mind mud on your 68. Anyway, dont know what to do with myself since the show season ended!

Hope to post some more pics soon and did anybody catch the all steel RS nose?

Seasons Greetings to all

Rich

[mudjnky]

Yes, it turned out to be a really nice day. Hopefully we'll make it back up there to that cafe again, sorry, don't remember the name.

Parked for the winter, you could always get those stripes painted on...

[Rat Kulture]

That would be the Whiskey, in Lyndhurst. Always a good time there.

Since you mentioned the stripe, and nobody else asked, i will just say that in addition to other mods that I made solely because Joel Rosen came out with a modern day version of his 69, well then I thought if its good enough for him then its good enough for me. And that is to build a modern day version of what a 71 might be.

So I went with the Baer brakes, at all four corners, which necessitated the use of a 17" rim. Never considered billet but liked the 17" cragars, they are really opened up and with the small offset are still ol skool but moderen looking.

That set the tone for the rest of the car, of which I made many modifications.

But the side and trunk stripe was deleted for 2 reasons- First because i talked to "gary the Stripe" the man who i understood painted all those Motion cars. He told me there was no "right" way, that some were thick, some were thin, some were dual and some were delete.

So i took that info and thought about it for when the time came to stripe.

First wanted white- but thought with a black interior, car would look too cluttered

But when i saw my car in the booth, http://www.nastyz28.com/forum/showthread.php?t=72020 I thought there was no way i was covering up any part of that paint, especially in the sunshine. But it was in there, and i had to make a decision, so I opted for a gloss black stripe on the L88 hood and a rear panel backout treatmant cause it was an SS car.

You can also see in the pics my took all winter to build dash, all the moon gauges were put in the highly dremeled, sabresawed, aluminum and epoxy gussed original pod. I sent the bezel out to be chromed, and the lighting on the little gauges are red. All the gauges are suspended in rubber mounts to eliminate vibration.

So thats the stripe story.

Changing gears here, there was a post about Chucks day 2 tunnel rammed camaro and his thinking on putting Gasser spoked rims on it.

While I agree they dont have a place on a motion tribute Camaro, here is what they look like on a Rat Rod canmaro, this is my 71 that I built on a budget while waiting for and spending big bucks on my 72.
http://picasaweb.google.com/Speedshiftcrunch/Camaro1971

Anyway, again, thanks for letting me share my cars