Vintageracer
06-05-2013, 03:15 PM
About 2 months ago this 1983 L69 Camaro Z/28 came across the scale at a scrape yard near Grand Rapids Michigan. The car was almost totally complete and was brought there by the owner of almost 15 years. The Camaro had "GSS" graphics on the side of the car. A friend of mine got a call from the salvage yard about the car and could not believe that a Camaro this complete would come across the scale as junk. He was able to purchase the car complete from the Salvage yard.
Through his initial research he thought the car was a 1983 Dick Guldstrand GSS Camaro and I agreed. The car still retained the "By Berger" sticker on the back of the car. Research through Guldstrand and Dick personally yielded information that the Dick remembered selling one GSS Camaro to Berger Chevrolet. I thought this must be that car. We found a Hot Rod article about the GSS Camaro's from 1982 and a "Shootout" test with GSS Camaro, a Maire Racing Mustang, a Herb Adams Trans Am and the Quikor Suspension Capri. The Guldstrand GSS Camaro won the shootout! My friend who purchased the car from the salvage yard said he did not have time or money to restore the car and I ultimately purchased the car believing it to be a Guldstrand GSS Camaro.
After receiving the car I began to dig deeper into the history of the car. Working with Joe Freeman at Gulstrand, Dick Guldstrand and Dick Jacques at Berger Chevrolet I was able to determine the history and provenance of this 1983 Berger Built GSS Camaro. Dick Jacques showed the pictures of the car to Matt Berger of Berger Chevrolet who was able to tell me the "Rest Of The Story" behind this Camaro!
Yesterday I received this email from Matt Berger detailing the history of the car when new at Berger Chevrolet:
"Michael,
That car is the first vehicle I built for myself in the early 1980’s while my father was on vacation. I had found out through the grape vine that Chevy was building a new engine for the late 1983 model Z/28. The cross-fire looked cool but was very underpowered. The 5.0 Liter H.O. was a huge step up and we ordered a dozen in the spring of 1983. Sometime subsequent to receiving the cars we read that a Camaro had won the 24 Hours of Nelson Ledges which was a showroom stock road race in Ohio. After doing a little research we uncovered that the chassis work on that vehicle was done by Dick Guldstrand. Dick was a former employee a famous muscle car dealer Dana Chevrolet in California (as was Dale Armstrong, Kenny Bernstein’s Crew Chief for his Budweiser King Funny Cars) and a nationally known Corvette professional road racer from the 1960’s. We wanted to replicate for the street what Dick was doing for the race cars. To that end the dealership installed lowering springs in the front, cut the rear springs, installed Bilstein dampers on all 4 corners, urethane bushings on front lower control arms, rear trailing arms, Dick’s trick panhard bar and some sway bar bushings. The finishing touch was a set of 245/60 x 15” Goodyear GT radials on BBS looking Epsilon wheels. We added the better speedo because if memory serves the stocker only went to 80 MPH. This was a pretty uncivilized package for a street car but great at the track. I remember as a young kid taking it out to the road course at Grattan, Mi. for my first road racing experience. The local Alfa and Porsche clubs were hosting a track day event and we thought we would give it a whirl. After technical inspection, I was approached by a few members who informed me my Camaro wouldn’t be competitive with the Stuttgart specials. They didn’t know what the car was but were soon to learn. It was a terrific day. It was faster than almost all of the vehicles in attendance. I totally killed a set of both tires and brake pads that afternoon but we were fast! We sold the car in the fall of that year but didn’t retain any of those records. I can tell by the color, trim and components that this is my old car. If you get it restored I would love to see the finished version. Good luck with your project.
Best Regards,
Matt Berger"
I especially like the part where Mr. Berger says the car was built while his dad was on vacation. Hard to believe that this Camaro came across the scale with those expensive and hard to find 3 piece Epsilon wheels still on the car! Below are pictures of the car at the salvage yard and dirty at my shop. I have since cleaned all the dirt off the car and will be adding additional pictures to the album later today when the rain stops.
Another "Berger Camaro" from a different era!
http://s263.photobucket.com/user/mjs-13/library/1983%20Guldstrand%20GSS%20Camaro%20June%202013
Through his initial research he thought the car was a 1983 Dick Guldstrand GSS Camaro and I agreed. The car still retained the "By Berger" sticker on the back of the car. Research through Guldstrand and Dick personally yielded information that the Dick remembered selling one GSS Camaro to Berger Chevrolet. I thought this must be that car. We found a Hot Rod article about the GSS Camaro's from 1982 and a "Shootout" test with GSS Camaro, a Maire Racing Mustang, a Herb Adams Trans Am and the Quikor Suspension Capri. The Guldstrand GSS Camaro won the shootout! My friend who purchased the car from the salvage yard said he did not have time or money to restore the car and I ultimately purchased the car believing it to be a Guldstrand GSS Camaro.
After receiving the car I began to dig deeper into the history of the car. Working with Joe Freeman at Gulstrand, Dick Guldstrand and Dick Jacques at Berger Chevrolet I was able to determine the history and provenance of this 1983 Berger Built GSS Camaro. Dick Jacques showed the pictures of the car to Matt Berger of Berger Chevrolet who was able to tell me the "Rest Of The Story" behind this Camaro!
Yesterday I received this email from Matt Berger detailing the history of the car when new at Berger Chevrolet:
"Michael,
That car is the first vehicle I built for myself in the early 1980’s while my father was on vacation. I had found out through the grape vine that Chevy was building a new engine for the late 1983 model Z/28. The cross-fire looked cool but was very underpowered. The 5.0 Liter H.O. was a huge step up and we ordered a dozen in the spring of 1983. Sometime subsequent to receiving the cars we read that a Camaro had won the 24 Hours of Nelson Ledges which was a showroom stock road race in Ohio. After doing a little research we uncovered that the chassis work on that vehicle was done by Dick Guldstrand. Dick was a former employee a famous muscle car dealer Dana Chevrolet in California (as was Dale Armstrong, Kenny Bernstein’s Crew Chief for his Budweiser King Funny Cars) and a nationally known Corvette professional road racer from the 1960’s. We wanted to replicate for the street what Dick was doing for the race cars. To that end the dealership installed lowering springs in the front, cut the rear springs, installed Bilstein dampers on all 4 corners, urethane bushings on front lower control arms, rear trailing arms, Dick’s trick panhard bar and some sway bar bushings. The finishing touch was a set of 245/60 x 15” Goodyear GT radials on BBS looking Epsilon wheels. We added the better speedo because if memory serves the stocker only went to 80 MPH. This was a pretty uncivilized package for a street car but great at the track. I remember as a young kid taking it out to the road course at Grattan, Mi. for my first road racing experience. The local Alfa and Porsche clubs were hosting a track day event and we thought we would give it a whirl. After technical inspection, I was approached by a few members who informed me my Camaro wouldn’t be competitive with the Stuttgart specials. They didn’t know what the car was but were soon to learn. It was a terrific day. It was faster than almost all of the vehicles in attendance. I totally killed a set of both tires and brake pads that afternoon but we were fast! We sold the car in the fall of that year but didn’t retain any of those records. I can tell by the color, trim and components that this is my old car. If you get it restored I would love to see the finished version. Good luck with your project.
Best Regards,
Matt Berger"
I especially like the part where Mr. Berger says the car was built while his dad was on vacation. Hard to believe that this Camaro came across the scale with those expensive and hard to find 3 piece Epsilon wheels still on the car! Below are pictures of the car at the salvage yard and dirty at my shop. I have since cleaned all the dirt off the car and will be adding additional pictures to the album later today when the rain stops.
Another "Berger Camaro" from a different era!
http://s263.photobucket.com/user/mjs-13/library/1983%20Guldstrand%20GSS%20Camaro%20June%202013