Muscle Car of the Week: 1969 Yenko Camaro

Today manufacturers pride themselves on fuel efficency. We are not far from a future where all cars will be powered by sunshine and feelings. And when that future arrives us old timers will talk about the good old days when manafacturers dueled year-in and year-out to see who could build a car with the biggest balls. It will sound like myth to the wienies driving wienie mobiles. Especially when we wax poetic about those titans who looked at the racecars coming off the factory line and said, "Pfft. I can do better." Titans like Don Yenko.

The 1969 Chevy Camero was one of the finest muscle cars of the era. Don Yenko of Yenko Chevrolet saw all that perfection as a canvas. He wanted to give it the Shelby treatment. The result was a supercar that has fetched millions at muscle car restoration auctions.

A Chevy man through and through, Yenko took out the factory motor and dropped in the L-72 427 Corvette V8. He also beefed up the suspension and replaced the hood with a model closer to the Stinger series found on big block Corvettes.

Chevy pegged the engine at 425 bhp, but Yenko did his own dyno run and found that it was closer to 450 bhp. These were custom jobs. Only 201 were sold in 1969. You may not be able to get your hands on one, but you should know the story so we call all preach the gospel to the wimps driving sunshine cars.