well, hi....i figure s.i. is close enough for me to join a jersey board =) My name's Omar, im a graphic designer, and i have a plain jane 69 camaro (my first car, had her now for 13ish years), with dreams of making her into a competent autocrosser/track day racer. and well, of making
myself a competent racer...right now i'm just finishing up rewiring her, and freshening up the 4wheel drums and getting plates and inspection are my next steps b4 i can get back on the road with her and hit some cruise spots/meets/etc. heres a pic taken a couple years ago after a paint job -
and since its a fun story to post, here's how i got her -
i was 15, had a few hundred bucks, looking for my first car (i'm looking at old domestic cars while my parents wanted to lease a neon for me), then my grandma passes away and left me a few more hundred with the words "dont worry about them, get what you want!", so i had an even 1000, i'd comb the classifieds every week and circle a couple, and my parents would drive me out to whereever to check the cars out. Pretty much all 4door novas and darts. one week i only circled 2 cars, and my mom was casually looking thru the paper and saw one i ignored:
1969 CAMARO, automatic. $1000. (718)123-1234, Queens. NY
She said "hey! what about this camaro" and i said nah, an ad like that always means its a heap, but it wasnt far from where we lived, so we all figured what the heck, lets see it.
i call the # and this 80-something yr old guy with loads of personality is the owner. hes all excited that i'm a kid and its my first car. he says come over tomorrow morning at 7 am, because he already got a bunch of calls from other guys that were gonna come tomorrow with cash.
we get there, and the camaro is awesome. i couldnt believe it. the old man quizzed me on when to do oil changes and other maintenance items. he quizzed me on chevys and old cars. we had a blast. he had to sell the car because of his cataracts, he couldnt drive anymore. him and his wife (who were both in awesome shape; they were vaudeville dancers) never had any kids, they treated the camaro as their kid, she was always their 2nd car. so he had the nurse that visits him every week start the camaro and drive her around for a bit to keep her running. so anyway, a 58 vette pulls up to the house, middle-aged guy gets out and is running over saying he brought the cash, and he'll take the car and will beat whatever i offered. Old man said nope, she belongs to this kid now.
and now i'm teary-eyed at work heh.
anyway, over the years shes gone thru a lot. 230 straight6, powerglide, no option car as far as i could tell aside from vinyl top and multi-leaf springs, tho i removed the vinyl top years ago. this pic is from a couple years ago after a repaint and a set of rims. right now that paintjob is BEAT, so i'm considering a cheapy matte black paint job and some less conspicuous rims since i will be moving soon and will have to park her on the street. ultimately i want her to have a sort of penske/donohue scca trans am theme. that i will STILL daily drive =)
