1967 Nickey Z28s

[1967Z28]

I am curious if anybody here has ever seen or even heard about 1967 Z28s sold through Nickey Chevrolet (or for that matter through Bill Thomas in Anaheim). They ordered three very early examples (cars #9-11) and according to accounts at the time they were intending to do some Trans Am racing with one or two of those cars. As far as I can tell though, it never happened. Anybody know anything about a '67 Z28 from Nickey, race car or not? Thanks.

-Jon

1967 Z28 street car
1967 Z28 Trans Am race car
1967 Z28 Registry

[NickeyChicago]

The TransAm program was cancelled for a variety of reasons. First and foremost were business conditions. About this time, Nickey began a long downhill run toward insolvency. Another factor was that Bill Thomas and Nickey were not getting along as well as many people think. A third was Nickey's realization that road racing was not the choice of its core base of customers. Hot Rod parts were where it was at and the money required to road race (my father's preferred racing) was no longer worth the return. The Camaro funny car suffered the same fate. Budget.

Tom Stephani

[1967Z28]

Tom,

I really appreciate your reply. I saw a little article in early '67 that said Bill Thomas/Nickey had $75K to fund a Trans Am effort and they were considering certain drivers such as Bob Bondurant, George Follmer and Al Unser. I knew it never happened, just didn't fully understand why. It must have fallen apart pretty fast. By January '67, the three Zs Nickey got had already been ordered and delivered. The article I saw was in Autoweek, so it's not like it was a news item from several months earlier. The Z Registry has almost 1/3 of the '67s accounted for and still no sign of a Nickey or Yenko car. Amazing. Where'd they go???

-Jon

1967 Z28 street car
1967 Z28 Trans Am race car
1967 Z28 Registry