1969 Chevy Camaro Project Car

You can tell a lot about people by the company they keep. In Doug Baisden’s case, the UPS man is practically a member of the family. The guy in the chocolate-colored uniform made so many parts deliveries to Doug’s house during the three-year buildup of his 1969 Camaro, there was a designated parking spot in the driveway for the big brown van. Mr. UPS began to wonder if Doug ordered enough stuff to build two cars instead, but when he saw the completed machine, he agreed the entire car must have come from the back of his truck. Indeed, Doug calculated that he spent nearly $30,000 on the components alone at Jeg’s and Summit Racing, among others.

That doesn’t surprise us, considering he started out with a complete basket case (click on sidebars below for photos of the buildup). The first thing he did was remove the front subframe, and then sandblast and paint it. He replaced the front clip with a new unit from Performance Suspension Technology, and swapped out the rearend with a Powertrax locker, and later added ladder bars. He had to tunnel the rear floorpans to allow for movement of the suspension.

Doug’s dad John did the assembly work on the 383 stroker, bored .030 over, puffed up with a Weiand 142 blower and topped by a 750 Holley that feeds the aluminum Edelbrock Performer RPM heads. Since Doug’s other ride is a wheelchair, he added hand controls to the Camaro’s cockpit for opening up the secondaries and hitting the Wilwood discs.

Doug’s wife doesn’t share the UPS man’s enthusiasm for the project. She calls this Corvette-yellow Camaro "The Nemesis," because it is has been the bane of her existence. Doug says she’s always telling people she hopes he never has to choose between her and "that car" because she would be sleeping on the street (and her point would be...?). Anyway, the car’s done now, so she doesn’t have much to worry about--except maybe for the next one.