My parents tell me that when I was two years old, I would sit in front of the TV watching dukes of hazard with a block between the couch cushions for a shifter and a plate in my hand for a steering wheel. When I learned to read, I read Hot Rod Magazine cover to cover every month trying to absorb what I could about muscle cars. At 12 I tried, unsuccessfully, to convince my father to let me buy a junker so that I could practice taking cars apart. Finally when I was 16 I bought my first car. It was a two-seater Honda chosen for reliability, but it was a far cry from the muscle car of my dreams.
I wound up selling the Honda and timing my next move carefully. I had studied Auto Trader Magazine for a year and found an affordable gem. For the tidy sum of $1000 I could buy a 68 Camaro in need of restoration with “nearly” all the parts included. The only issue would be getting it home without my father finding out. With my Dad on the plane for a four day long business trip, I made my move and had the car delivered to the house on a flat bed.
If my father saw the car he would definitely try to make me sell it, but if it were in 4000 pieces, there would be no way to sell it until it was finished. The race was on. By the time my Dad’s plane hit the tarmac four days later, the Camaro was stripped down with the sub frames yanked apart. His reaction was as expected, but I think he might have admired my conviction.
While I had $2000 left from my Honda sale, the next year of the Camaro was a balancing act of working 3 jobs and trying to find time to build the car. At one point I had convinced my high school to let me take two continuous classes of auto tech to give me access to more tools and labor time. When I couldn’t work on the car, I’d find a way to cut school to work more. Knowing where the money was going made it easy to work washing dishes, mopping floors, and pushing shopping carts.
A year later I had the Camaro back together in the driveway of my parent’s house. I had rebuilt the 307 motor that came with the car with a few more shiny go fast parts. My Dad was happy to watch it start as I took it for a spin around the driveway and tried to annihilate a pair of junk yard tires. I could tell right away it wasn’t nearly fast enough with the 307 engine. I had talked up the car for months to anyone who would listen. Only a monstrous motor would do. By the time my Father came out of the house to congratulate me for getting the car out of the driveway, I already had the motor dangling from the engine hoist.
The new 355 motor I built came in around 450 horsepower and cost me another 6 months of 3 jobs, but was worth it. It was a monster. After finally getting the car together, painted, and running just right, I had spent a year and a half of time and every nickel I could rub together. For the next year, two 80 foot long black strips appeared after every stoplight and stop sign in my neighborhood. I had a job at a garage where I replaced the tires on the car almost every week. I learned to drive looking out the drivers and passenger side windows, and lived out all my childhood sideways driving dreams. It was the greatest.
Sadly I sold the car when I went to college and I have never been the same since. I sold the embodiment of two of the most frustrating and rewarding years of my life. The only thing I have to remember the Camaro by is an odd couple of pictures and a looped video of burnouts and donuts. I stay alive by promising myself that in the future I can build another just like it, only faster. I learned more about cars and engines with this adventure than I could have ever thought. The experience helped me to realize that the only way to really learn to do something is by trying, and that my father is more patient than I have ever given him credit for.
