Messages

  Not directly related to this topic, but I spent an hour with John Martin today , talking about American Motors and the Trans Am Javelins and his Rambler American A / Sedan

  Are you folks familiar with the swinging oil pickup that Yenko made and sold for many years ?

Looking at Vic's car would not give you an accurate view of Smokey's work, as the car has been rebodied. The original body could not be saved due to acid dipping and later corrosion.

       My new book " The Yenko Era...continued. Canonsburg and Beyond " is now with the Publisher and the 1st printing will be available early November. This book is another scrapbook format like " The Yenko Era ", which is still in print after 10 years. This book is about 300 pages,history of the Yenko ZL1 and other engine projects, history of the Yenko emblems, etc.    Advance orders can be made , $40 & $5 shipping, check or MO to     Mark Gillespie, P O Box 88784, Indianapolis, In 46208

    The University of Pittsburgh Camaro was one of the first to use power steering. Their crew chief passed his design on to Penske . He later worked for John Greenwood's Corvette team.

  THe original Minilites were made by Techdel Ltd. I think the company has been reactivated in recent years.

   I may have a photo and info in my files showing the rear suspension setup and student designed traction device on The University of Pittsburgh Camaro.

  All Corvairs, including Stingers were classified  as sedans under FIA rules when raced in Canada... Touring group II.

  Just saw the reference to the Dimension Racing Camaro driven by Peter S. ....I had a conversation with Peter at the Nelson Ledges Trans Am that year..was explaining a few mods on front suspension to him on the Yunick car and how to adapt a few stock car products to his Camaro.

  A small correction to Jon's post on the Indy Vintage race...Logan Dernoshek drove my Yenko Stinger , YS037, to a win. Got a big dent in the right front fender, a Porsche did want to be passed by a lowly Corvair on lap 2..made a sharp left turn into Logan, but bent his fender and cut a tire and spun out next lap. Our best race lap was 1:55 for the 2.44 mile, 14 turn course. Not bad for a 50 yr old Corvair ! I bought the car when I worked at Yenko in 1966.

   The Nascar  series had slightly different rules ( floater rears, etc ) a bit heavier cars than TransAm. By the way the second Smokey Camaro  ( info provided by Smokey )was raced with success by Tiny Lund. I have a photo somewhere in my archives

   A friend just bought a Corvair race car which has been dormant for years. It has a Solar ( steve McQueen ) fiberglass high back seat which he will sell. $200 & shipping or make offer.It is in my garage here in Indy.

  Since I was there at the time, I got to see a lot of the Yunick Camaro.When I attempted to buy the car in the early 70's, I looked at it even more closely. Smokey was very clever..often made mods that were fairly easy to spot in tech to direct attention away from harder to see changes that made a bigger difference in performance. Probably good that I did not buy the car then, as I was helping Warren  D. with a short track asphalt Chevelle and he wanted to make into a short track stock car.

Happened to see an earlier question on the vinyl roof on a Penske Camaro... Petty did it first on a Nascar Plymouth, probably to cover a little aero mod to the windshield and front edge of the roofline.

  Remember the Car and Driver 1969 Camaro with the LT 1 . Car was given away in a contest later.