Kurt, Are you sure about the numbers not being reset for the 1970 cars? The only reason I ask is I visit the Nastyz28 (by far the best second gen site) site and there is a guy who owns what he says (I have not seen the cowl tag or vin) is Norwood built 70 Camaro 10001 he claims that it was a test mule for Smoky Yunick. I just copy and pasted his first post for you to see. There are a lot more posts about the car on NastyZ28 from him and from reading them he has owned a lot of old SCCA Trans Am race cars including one of Penskie's 68 Z28's. To me this seems like some info that should be shared on this site. I hope in some way in can help both first and second generation owners. His first post about the car follows and a second one after that.
I am the owner of the first 1970 Camaro to be produced at the Norwood plant (Nov. 69). I bought the car years ago from Smokey Yunick. The VIN is: 123870N500001 and yes I know that is a six cylinder car. However, my car was sent immediately to the GM proving Grounds (Chevrolet Engineering) and became a test bed for many of the racing options. It was then sent to Smokey Yunick and he was instructed to run tests on all of the various components for homologation of 70 and 71 racecars. The FIA required that all sedan-based racecars to be eligible for FIA Groups I and II racing have the major components be certified as "production" items of Service replacement item available "over the counter"
I am interested in getting any further information on this and other similar cars--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Second post
Thank you for that info. I have contacted the seller for more info. No reply yet.
Below is some additional info that I posted to another of the threads I have started. Maybe it will start some feedback.
I really appreciate all the help.
Dave Tom
You would think the GM guys would know something. But, as I'm sure many have discovered, Chevrolet is very tight with any Camaro information. Those guys that were around in late 1969 and 1970 are mostly retired or in several cases have gone to a better life.
I did get some good feedback this summer from a fellow that was at the PG in those days. He had no recollection of my car but from the story I told him he said it was entirely possible.
Smokey, told me how he got the car with a load of GMC trucks he picked-up in Detroit. He told me what he was to do with the car. That was to run tests on the car on his 80-mile county road "test track" inland from his Daytona Beach, FL shop. He told me it was a "big block" car with all the high performance goodies. His tests were, as I discovered later, to get the 454 L-S6, four-wheel disk brake, M-22, cold air hood, and other special parts homologated for the FIA approval to race such a car in the FIA Groups I & II sanctioned events such as IMSA and the Group II European championship. I have a copy of those papers. And I have all of those special parts, including the special four-wheel disc brake rear end with the emergency brakes still intact. While I have seen other such packages for the racecars, I have never seen one with the working emergency brakes.
This would indicate that this particular rear was intended for and used on a "street" car.
I interviewed John Delorian, as he was responsible for the under-hood cold air plenum package and other design of the 1970 Camaro. He confirmed that he did mandate that the 1970 Camaro have a smooth hood top as opposed to the '69 cold air hood. Smokey told me the story of how he developed that package using my car and a 1970 racecar similar to the Chaparral Camaro of Jim Hall (I at one time also owned one of the Chaparral Camaro Trans-Am racecars). I bought the prototype hood from Smokey years ago and restored it for the Chaparral Camaro. I also have the prototype Cold=Air plenum that I bought from Smokey.
While I had the Chaparral, I contacted Jim Hall several times. He confirmed that he went to the GM proving grounds to test a Camaro for aerodynamics. He said the test car was silver. During the test which was conducted because Jim was having trouble balancing the front and rear down force on the racecar he was testing at Rattlesnake Raceway behind his shop in Midland Texas, Hall said that they used a 1970 Firebird rear spoiler center section and crafted two end sections to make a tall spoiler for the proving grounds test. This story is confirmed in one of the early Camaro books (I think it is "The Great Camaro" by Michael Lamm). Anyway, my Camaro has the holes that were made for that test, and I bought two of the three pieces of the prototype spoiler from Smokey's estate.
I could go on and on, but I simply need new leads to contact as many people as I can who might know something about my car or any of the early Pilot cars ie, 0N500001 through 0N500017.
