The Prefect Camaro
The prefect camaro, in 1969 Chevrolet would have a grand idea,
spawned by the creation of the sYc or Super Yenko Camaro, this
car would be called the ZL1 Camaro, and would be the meanest
camaro ever built, this car was not for the weak of heart, if
you didn't know what it was capable of it could hurt you very
badly.
Only 69 of these cars were ever built, as far as I know, this
number may not be right on the money, it can get a bit hard to
find these numbers, if you search on the web you'll find all
kinds of different ideas about the production numbers on these
cars, the one thing I do know is this, Chevrolet wanted to build
a car to campaign at the NHRA, and this car was built specially
to do their bidding on the race track The sanctioning body of
the NHRA had some rules about what they would or would not allow
to race under their rules, the main rule was this, to be allowed
to race the car had to be a regular production model, and this
meant that Chevrolet had to produce at the least 50 of these
cars to qualify them to race at the drag strip.
These car would go on to prove themselves beyond Chevrolet's
wildest dreams, they came form the factory with an all aluminum
427 CID big block monster engine, that was rated at 430 HP from
the factory, which was a severe underrating of the actual power
that the car had, but the all aluminum engine in effect made
that car weigh about the same as if it had a small block, so you
can imagine what would happen.
The car would be sold for what at this time was an outrageous
price of $7,200.00, in 1969 Fred Gibbs Chevrolet ordered one of
these Camano's to go and race with, it was a special order car
known as the ZL1 Camaro or COPO 9560 "Central Office Production
Order" Dick Herrel was to drive the car for Fred Gibbs
Chevrolet, and he would set a record for a street driven car
during his run as a driver for Fred Gibbs.
The ZL1 Camaro would prove to be an amazing race car, not to
mention, it was still a street car also, in street dress Dick
Herrel would achieve 1/4 mile times of 11.05 and in full race
mode, with the headers uncorked and slicks added he would
achieve a 10.35 1/4 mile time on his first run.
Then he would reach a real high for a street driven car, mind
you this in as bought from the factory with slicks added and
headers uncorked or in full race mode he would achieve an all
time high 1/4 mile time of 10.05, now how many cars do you know
of from the factory that will pull that feat off.