Mission Accomplished

It was an uphill battle, but the CHP 1969 Camaro project finally made it to the finish line

- Nick Licata

The project car building process is one that can go in multiple directions—some good and some, well … let’s just say, more challenging than others. It all comes down to the condition of the car you are starting with, which can be quite different from the condition you believed the car was in when you bought it.

With the ’60’s-era Camaros being more popular than ever, we here at Chevy High Performance wanted to join in on the action so we set our sights on a first-gen that we could arm with some of the baddest Pro Touring and performance aftermarket parts available. We were even cool with a car that left GM with a sixbanger since we’d be punching in an LS3 crate engine from Chevrolet Performance. The idea for this project would be to build a car with plenty of power combined with the reliability of a daily driver.

The “used bins” are pretty full of first-gen Camaros so a quick Internet search netted us a specimen that looked to be a fairly solid example: a 1969 that on the surface appeared to be fairly shy of rust and rot. The seller claimed to be the original owner, the car had been parked since 1988, and was absolutely rust-free. It was just what we were looking for, as messing with a ton of bodywork was less-than appealing to us. We pulled the trigger and excitedly trailered our purchase to the TEN Tech Center in El Segundo, California. We couldn’t wait to dig into this thing and start welding in and bolting on a bunch of performance goodies. We were in “F-body heaven.” We were finally moving forward on the latest Chevy High Performance project car … Not so fast.