Jeff Masishin's Day 2 SS427 Camaro

[Xplantdad]

Jeff Masishin’s 1969 SS 427 Day-2 Camaro
ENGINE: Booth-Arons L-72 427 (was originally L78)
TRANS: Turbo 400
REAR: Factory 4:56
EXTERIOR: Daytona Yellow
INTERIOR: Standard Black
OPTIONS: Endura Bumper, Radio-Delete, Shaded Glass
SELLING DEALER: Carl Schmidt Chevrolet, Maumee, Ohio




“Seek And Ye Shall Find”…are the words my friend Steve Woodward (now living in Florida) instilled into me when I was looking for a 1969 427 Camaro SS 427 in the early 80’s. Then one day in 1984 he said, “Are you ready Cowboy, ‘cause here’s that car you’ve been looking for and it’s For Sale”. In Hemmings was an ad too good to be true. 1969 Camaro SS 427 with 971 miles, never licensed, non-altered……..with a Booth-Arons prepped L72! I left NJ on a Friday and was there Saturday morning. It was exactly as like the picture, M&H slicks and all. The owner pumped the throttle a few times and hit the key; that was all I needed to hear. He lit up the streets, drove us back to his house and I told him to “keep it rolling till the guy up on the trailer tells you to stop” DONE DEAL. The rest is history.

It was all there as promised. The owner said he bought it from Schmidt Chevrolet in Maumee, Ohio when the dealer decided to sell his “racecar”. It had 600 or so miles on the odometer. (A quarter-mile at a time as I found out more about the car from BWAG of this Forum) He kept it for almost 10 years to the day, then decided to sell. With the car came loads of paperwork including the dealer invoice when he bought it from the dealer and even a punch list from Dick Arons with his notes on the engine prep.

Back in NJ, I drove it on the street in its 70’s paint scheme (which I hated back then) and peoples mouths just flapped open when they saw it coming, going or stopped. The idle was enough to let the person know this was no ordinary 69 Camaro. One guy I became friends with because he had a gorgeous, original Rally Green 1969 Yenko Camaro was Keith F. from this Forum (427450). We hung out together at The World of Wheels car shows in Philly and took home trophies everywhere we went. At one of them, the yellow car was awarded “Best Engine” which I proudly display today.

In 1986, yes it was me who stripped the cars paint and had it painted like the day it was delivered to Schmidt Chevrolet; all Daytona Yellow. Except for a motor that my close friend John Gavio freshened-up and keeps it running great even today, the car is like a time capsule. The sheet metal, the trim, the interior and all the glass are original. The windshield and the back window still have the GM factory-type windshield tape. They’ve never been out of the car. The front SS Cragars are the ones that came on the car as the older pictures show.

I still have the 11.5 wide M&H slicks, also with the original wheels mounted. The T-3 headlights still work. Today, the odometer reads a whooping 2086 miles! It has never been in the rain. Period.


After I posted some pictures here in this Forum and learned what the meaning of “Day-2” was, low and behold pops-ups Bob Wagoner and he showers me with the original photographs when he owned and drove the car when it was BRAND NEW on his 19th birthday way back in 1968. He was part of the Dealer group that ordered it over lunch time from GM! I’ll let him tell his story with his own words below. Enjoy and THANK YOU BOB!

[ QUOTE ]
The Original Dealer’s Toy


We are the original owners of Jeff’s (ss427copo on SYC) flawless and factory-original Camaro. We ordered the 1969 SS 396/375 Camaro in late October 1968 to replace our 1968 SS 396 SS/C Camaro race car. I say we, because our dealership was Carl Schmidt Chevrolet in Ohio.

It was important for us to have the latest Camaro body style to use as dealership advertising. Over one of our lunch breaks, armed with a dealer order book and the latest high performance and drag racing magazines, we ordered an L-78 375 horsepower console shifted automatic with 4:56 heavy duty posi and heavy duty cooling in Daytona Yellow with the Endura bumper, black interior and black hockey stick stripes. Figuring we needed to stop this thing, we added front disc brakes. We even deleted the radio! Who was going to hear it anyway?

The car was built at the Norwood Plant was then delivered to our dealership by my 19th birthday, December 8, 1968. We bolted on a set of American wheels with Goodyear tires from the dealer’s Corvette and started to “break the car in”. Our test drives were cut short by a covering of snow, so we put the new car away. It never saw another drop of rain while we owned it!

We started collecting race parts, Cragar wheels, Hooker headers, Lakewood traction bars, and drive shaft loops, an electric fuel pump and a 3 point roll bar. The dealer, who was only 24 years old at the time, had some good GM factory connections and had already been talking to Dick Arons about building us an engine. Arons told him about the GM deal on the COPO 427 cars being built, so we decided to run that combination in SS/EA. The 427 engine was done and the car was on the Milan Dragway Strip by Easter for some time trial runs.

It turned 12.10 @115 on the first pass and 11:80s before we got snowed out again. That was the start of a never ending battle to go faster. Booth and Arons had a network of cars running their engines and every weekend we would compare notes as what E.T.s and speeds were and what the set-up of the day was.

The first points meet was in May at Columbus, and by that time we had the car under the SS/EA record of 11:62. That’s me in the staging lanes waiting my run! We ran most of the Division 3 Points meets in 1969 and had some success locally.

The car was a non-stop experiment. We changed cams and cam timing; we built a dual point, high gear, timing retard tach drive distributor. We changed carb jetting and power valves, modified intake plenum dividers, header tube size, and collector length, and made 2 or 3 valve adjustments a day.

We tried 4:56, 4:88, and 5:13 gears, tried different tire sizes, compounds and tire pressures. We modified the gas tank to a baffled sump pickup at the back of the tank and tried different shift RPM’s to name a few of the variables besides track and weather conditions. The car taught us a lot about what made it go fast and what id didn’t like. All the info was logged and shared with the group who ran Arons engines.

For 1970, we started with a fresh 427 engine and the new yellow, red, and white panel paint job that my brother laid out and sprayed. This was the same paint scheme that was on the car when Jeff bought from its second owner, Steve K. of Toledo, OH. in 1984. The car ran in SS/DA class now. We took the car to the Gatornationals in Gainesville. The car was running 11:30’s but didn’t make the field (on an 11:47 record). The top 32 cars were 3 tenths under their records or more. We were in 33rd spot. TOUGH CROWD!!!

While we were still in Florida, we put in the first stall speed torque converter and it made the car easier to drive. Remember, before the stall converter, the car was launched with a spin start and it had to be timed with a line loc release for a good launch. This was sometimes tricky. We ran the car the rest of 1970 with some success.

By the end of the 1970 season, the record had been bombed to an 11:21 and the car was not going to be competitive much longer. We set the car in its corner of the shop to go Modified Production and Pro Stock racing with a new 1971 SS Camaro.

After that, I would get the car out on free weekends and race AHRA at Norwalk Raceway. The car would run 11:20’s consistently and at that time, the AHRA record was 11:60’s. I turned a best of 11:19 @ 125 before putting it away in 1973.

By 1975 we were out of room at the race shop and decided to sell the yellow car and practically gave it away. How’s $2600.00 sound; including a fresh, race ready Booth Arons motor? I should have put it away in the barn. I always asked around town about the car during the 1980’s and 1990’s but no one seemed to know what happened to it. I figured if it turned up I would try to buy it back to put back on the street and an occasional grudge match.

You could imagine 3 years ago when Jeff (SS427COPO) showed the first pictures of it on the Yenko Site how surprised I was that it turned up again. Jeff told me he bought in it 1984 from the guy we sold it to in April 1974 and it had 971 miles on it when he bought it. They are accurate miles too. Of course, when we owned it, I helped put about 600 of them on it, a ¼ mile at a time!

I sent Jeff photos that I found and he’s got some too that triggered memories of a Camaro that taught me the science of drag racing, not to mention all of the hard work and the good times.

Bob Wagoner
Bwag[/b]

Thanks,

Jeff

[/ QUOTE ]

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Here are the vintage shots

December of 1968



1969 Dealer's Toy



1969 Dealer's Toy at the Gatornationals


Original Paint



Race truck



Schmidt Chevy Invoice



1970





1984 "1/4 Mile High"





More





Hemmings ad



Timeslips



Mileage cert



Balance and Blueprint

[Xplantdad]

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[Xplantdad]

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[DarrenX33]

Anyone else remember the day when Jeff joined here and we wanted to clobber him cause he wouldn't tell us anything about his car?

Jeff's Camaro has since become one of my favorites. And he is a good guy to boot.

[x Baldwin Motion]

unbelievable story !! excellent!!
didn't he tease us with an exhaust sound bite a while back?
I remember the camping picture in the garage too !!

what a piece of history.

obviously whoever striped that car should cut off his ear, it was outrageous 70's!!

[mockingbird812]

Wonderful Jeff. What a beautiful beast with incredible history. Well done!!!!

[Z-11 396]

+++ Jeff +++ Fantastic car, great photo's, and Doc.'s to go with , Thanks for sharing.....Kasey /.

[427TJ]

This is my favorite '69 Camaro, hands down. Cragars, Rat, stance, ATTITUDE = x 1,000

[Nova Jed]

I loved that 70's look, but some of you guys lived it to hate it. Awsome car whatever color it wears.

[jtower1969]

Those Pictures + some others I've seen latley make me want to paint a stripe over the hood of my car.....VERY COOL!!!!