1969 Chevrolet Camaro - Lifelong Dream

Rare Camaro Was Worth the Wait

Do you remember what life was like when you were 11 years old? Open a dictionary to the word impressionable and you'll likely find an 11-year-old gazing at something—a car, an airplane, a sword, you name it—with newfound wonder. Brain chemistry changes when your age hits double digits. It's like you're seeing the world for the first time. The adult you will become begins to form within that preteen body. If you think about it, your favorite music, movies, TV shows, and of course cars were probably decided around the time you were 11.

So you can totally understand how a 1969 Chevrolet Camaro Z/28 left an indelible impression on an 11-year-old Mark Vavere. Especially the one he saw on that fateful day. Not only was it a '69 Z (arguably the pinnacle year of first-generation Camaros, looking racetrack-ready with its spoilers and stripes), but it was special one, painted in a striking Burgundy color with white graphics. Squint a bit and the scheme is almost the negative image of the more common orange-with-black-stripe paint job you see so often on Camaros of this vintage.

What Mark didn't know then (but would learn the hard way years later) was that a Burgundy Z/28 is a rare thing. Of the nearly quarter-million Camaros made for the 1969 model year, about 19,000 were Z/28s. And just two percent of all '69 Camaros—fewer than 5,000 cars—were painted Burgundy. We don't know how many Zs got the Burgundy coat, but if you do the math, two percent of 19,000 works out to not even 400 cars.

There were many dead ends and disappointments

If you're an impressionable youth, then, and you spot one of these dusky cars and say to yourself, "Someday, I will have a car like that," well, you have your work cut out for you. Which is exactly what Mark found when he started hunting for that elusive Camaro.

It took Mark Vavere years to find his dream Camaro Z/28 due to its rare color. And then it took him and the crew at Autokraft several more years to finish the restoration. But the results are stunning.

"Had I known how much work and the countless hours I would spend in finding and restoring my dream car, I'm not sure that I would ever have started this quest," he admits. "There were many dead ends and disappointments."

For four years Mark looked for a real Burgundy Z/28. During that time he found exactly two. This is one of them. But it looked nothing like this at the time.

"It was a diamond in the rough," Mark says. "The original owner of the car purchased it new in the spring of 1969 in Austin, Texas. He told me that he had a lot of fun with it and did some back-alley street racing back in the day. The motor had blown up in the late '70s due to a stuck rod and was not repaired. The car had been sitting ever since and had not seen any attention for many years."

We would often spend hours mulling over the tiniest detail

Several factors, though, were in Mark's favor. "The shell of the car was in OK condition, and all three VINs were found on the body and matched the VIN on the motor. The cowl tag verified that it was the real thing with the Code 67 Burgundy paint and the X33 [Z/28] package."

 

The Z/28 package included a wheel and tire upgrade, from the standard 14-inch rims to 15x7s mounting E70-15 raised-white-letter tires.

Mark had the car's carcass and boxes of parts hauled from Texas to his home in Wisconsin, but then began a search almost as intensive as the one for the car—for the right restorer.

"I had heard that Kurt Anderson of Autokraft Race Cars & Restorations in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, did amazing work," says Mark. "After checking numerous references and after much investigation, I knew he was the person I wanted for the job. Kurt was, like me, a perfectionist, and we would often spend hours mulling over the tiniest detail. In the process we became good friends."

"It was a project car in a million pieces," remembers Kurt. "It did have the original matching-numbers block and heads, so that was a huge bonus." Mark and Kurt spent years rounding up parts for the car, many of which were N.O.S. "Mark helped in tracking down parts with the correct date codes since this car was to be done to concours spec," says Kurt. "He wanted the car to be perfect, and he went to great lengths to make sure everything was as correct as possible."

It was a project car in a million pieces

"Sometimes I felt like I was on a scavenger hunt in searching the Internet, want ads, and numerous publications to find the right, authentic parts we needed," adds Mark. "It was like a jigsaw puzzle that was slowly coming together." Mark also had the resources of his car club, the Northstar Camaro Club of Minnesota, to offer advice on parts and services.

As anyone who has done it knows, parts hunting can be a frustrating stage of the restoration. As if that weren't difficult enough, there was another complication. Mark's wife, Wendy, received a cancer diagnosis that rocked the couple. Work on the car had to stop at times so that Mark could focus his attention on his wife. But work did continue, and after about three years the car was finished.

We photographed Mark's car late in the summer of 2014. Wendy hoped to be at the photo shoot with Mark and Kurt, but by then she was too sick to leave the hospital. Three weeks later she passed away. Yet even though she had her own battles to fight, "she understood and shared my dream," says Mark. "I could not have done this without her support."
At a Glance
1969 Camaro Z/28
Owned by: Mark Vavere, Osceola, WI
Restored by: Autokraft Race Cars & Restorations, Eau Claire, WI; Wheeler Racing Engines, Blaine, MN
Engine: 302ci/353hp V-8
Transmission: Muncie M21 4-speed manual with Hurst shifter
Rearend: GM 12-bolt with 3.73 gears and Positraction
Interior: Black vinyl bucket seat
Wheels: 15x7 Rally
Tires: E70-15 Goodyear Wide Tread GT
Special parts: Rare Burgundy color

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Air from the cowl-induction hood feeds this 800-cfm Holley DZ4053 carburetor. Wheeler Racing Engines did a remarkable job on this engine. The components look like jewelry.