BORN INTO THIS
At Camaro Nationals this past July, I came upon a family wearing matching t-shirts. Mom and the kids all had “I was born into this” on the back, while dad sported a shirt that read, “I married into this.” ‘This’ was a 1967 Camaro Sport Coupe named “Betsy”. The family is the daughter (Wendy), son-in-law (Jeff) and grandchildren of the second owner, Sandy. When I asked Wendy the meaning behind the shirts, she told me that she was brought home from the hospital in this car. Well, as a fellow Camaro baby, I had to know the whole story and it’s pretty cool.
In late 1967 this car was purchased by a grandmother at the urging of her grandson who thought it would be a cool ‘grocery-getter’ for his gram. Turns out the 327 with a 2-speed Powerglide was too much car for her and she traded the car back with just about 100 mi on the odometer in August of 1968. On the day she arrived at the dealership to make the trade, Sandy and her father were there to buy Sandy her first car. As they watched it pull into the lot, her dad knew this was the car for her, “My grandfather said, ‘Sandy, you have to buy that car!’”
They traded her dad’s Corvair in on the barely used Camaro Sport Coupe. She named the car “Betsy” and it was her companion for much of its life. Sandy passed the car down to her daughter, Wendy and her husband, Jeff who have since restored the car. “There wasn’t too much to do. We rebuilt the engine, bored it to .30 over and replaced the cam and gaskets.” Jeff continues, “It broke my mother-in-law’s heart when I revealed to her that it wasn’t a true SS.” The dealership had installed the vinyl top, stripes, and SS badges on the base model sport coupe.
Upon restoring the car, Jeff and Wendy added Chip Foose inspired stripes, “We call them the Rally Bee stripes because they are part Z28 Rally stripes and part Bumblebee nose stripes. They really look good on the car with the vinyl top.”
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