1969 Chevrolet Camaro - Ooms Zooms!

One man’s take on the less-is-more philosophy

Unlike most of us in this crazy car life, Nevill Ooms was able to connect with a major aftermarket manufacturer to build his hot rod. That’s a very big deal when you figure the odds of this are about the same as being struck by lightning on a Tuesday. Ooms became part of a plan to produce three ’69 Camaros featuring various stages of modification for the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) that convenes spectacularly every January at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

He’s tight with the product planners at Pioneer Electronics, is no stranger to aftermarket-driven buildups, and was in fact, a project manager on the all-steel Dodge Sidewinder concept that was built at Metalcrafters in Fountain Valley, California, and appeared on the cover of the December 1996 issue of Hot Rod magazine.

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So, of the three icons, Nevill’s Camaro would become the gnarliest of the lot, a serious street machine with a Pro Touring vibe, but the real reason for this exercise was using the car as a stage for the high-end Pioneer audio presentation. He found his candidate up the road in Redding, California, and certainly all he had to go on were some jpeg images. Of course, he bought the thing unseen, because “the car seemed decent and the price was right.”

A little bit later, a transporter dropped the pile on Ooms’ doorstep at the Five Axis shop in Huntington Beach, California. He ripped into it. He found oxidation demons feasting merrily beneath the body filler. In preparation for Andrew Patterson’s (who did the majority of the sheetmetal repair and modified the bumpers) ministrations he excised the copious rot. He went on to design and construct several of the car’s interior systems, installed the engine and all its lines, fabbed the composite intake tube, and lathe-turned some bits (door locks, wiper switch and covers, and the shifter boot bezel).

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Others in the army of occupation included Grant Peterson, who modified engine mounts and oil pan, ran brake lines, and installed the fuel tank, and then tackled the independent rear suspension system. Paul Sapp assembled the body panels and helped with the driveline, brakes, and steering. Geoff Curtis did all the fabrication in the trunk area, all the trim panels, and wired the sound system. He also tweaked the interior pan and the trunk pan. Marci and Hilaro were instrumental in the bodywork process and in making sure that panel alignment was dead-nuts. Somewhere along the line, Five Axis added the critical mini-tubs.

If there were a catchphrase here, it would be bolt-on mechanicals. Five Axis formed the cradle with a Heidts Pro-G subframe, 2-inch drop spindles, tubular control arms, and adjustable QA1 coilover shock absorbers, which reduced the ground clearance by 3 inches. They countered this with the bolt-in Pro-G independent rear suspension system (modified four-link, upper and lower control arms) surrounding a Ford 9-inch pumpkin fitted with 3.50:1 gears and limited-slip differential. QA1 adjustable coilovers complete the outfit, as well as the stance, with a 2.5-inch drop.

Speed is diminished by six-piston Wilwood calipers on 13-inch discs, and in the rear a four-piston version on 10.5-inch diameter hats are mounted in-board. As much as we adore the five-spoke in all its iterations, the (Halibrand-reminiscent) rims on Ooms’ car are a refreshing change. Venerable Centerline Boulevards got the work: 18x8 and 18x10.5 hoops are surrounded by popular BFG KDW 235/40 and 275/40 rubber.

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Impetus comes from a Chevrolet Performance LSA crate, a supercharged and intercooled 376 cubic incher that cranks out 556 hp at 6,100 rpm and 551 lb-ft of torque at 3,800 rpm at the crank as the four-lobe rotors in the 1.9L Eaton produce 9 psi maximum boost. Ooms deemed those numbers sufficient for his mission and refrained from further power-making modification because the LSA has E-Rod certification, without tubular headers, but with exhaust catalysts. A Mast Motorsports oil pan enhanced the installation. The LSA sources fuel from a modified factory tank and an Aeromotive high-volume pump. Incoming air is drawn through a composite intake tube to a custom housing holding a Spectre filter element. Aft of the mandatory cats, a 2.5-inch MagnaFlow system siphons the waste all the way to the exhaust tips in the valance panel. The accessory drive includes compressor for Classic Air HVAC system. A Be Cool four-row core keeps the antifreeze temperate. Grunt is managed by a Monster Transmission-built 4L80E that transfers torque via a 2,500-stall Chevrolet Performance Parts converter. Powertrain Industries in Garden Grove, California, built the prop shaft.

The thoroughly rehabbed sheetmetal was laboriously prepped (including removal of the side gills) and sprayed by Walt Pearson, the head painter at Five Axis. Walt used PPG Torch Red to connect the interior scheme subtlety with the exterior via a warm bronze mist on the center of the wheels. Grooming further, Five Axis modified the original bumpers (no visible fasteners) drawing them closer to the body and they put an SS bonnet where a ZL2-type Z/28 hood might be. South Bay Chrome did its thing and Sticky Fingers in Huntington Beach applied the graphics. Prior to all this, Five Axis had sealed all the chassis components, the engine compartment, hood hinges, and intake tube with Deft (DFT) single-stage urethane.

At Five Axis, Geoff Curtis and Nevill installed the almighty Pioneer components, gathering a AVIC-X930BT head unit (with CD and DVD), two 800-watt GM-D7500M Mono Amps, and an 800-watt GM-9500F four-channel; front speakers are TS-D1720C in size 6 3/5, rears are 6x9 TS-D692R, and the system is supported by a pair of TS-W259S4 10-inch subwoofers. Sometimes, though, Nevill Ooms goes raw, cranks up the rpm and lets the whine of the LSA excite his bone marrow.

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A ton of work and inspiration illuminate the interior and include so many subtleties that we don’t have room to explore them all. The highlights include oddities as custom acrylic light pipes for the turn signal stalks that transmit the amber LED light to the edge of the plastic parts, cobalt blue LED accent lighting, and the inclusion of a brake and gas pedal that were fashioned for the Sidewinder truck project but didn’t make the final cut.

Ooms designed and built a new console as well as a gauge cluster to house the Auto Meter Cobalt instruments. He also embedded a ’67 Camaro V-8 fender badge in the Momo Millennium Evo steering wheel. A Lokar stick juts from middle of the console like an accusing finger. Ooms directs the proceedings from Honda CR-Z seats, which are now sporting leather and Alcantara covers as applied by Specialty Interiors in Fountain Valley, California. The carpet upgrade went from old-school hook-and-loop to a softer, more-refined pile construction.

“These cars always have stories,” said Ooms. “And people want to share them. I will keep this vehicle as a statement of the work that I do and is a way I can express the ‘less is more’ philosophy.”