1968 Trans-Am season review

[group/7]

jon, question about post #147 on the reinhardt ex sunoco camaro. I am a bit confused. is this the same car that reinhardt ran bodied as a "68 with KLM & NcNamara sponsorship ? I also have a article from a english magazine on the "wiggins-teape" car raced by brian muir in england that says this is the ex reinhardt car. to further muddy the waters ! I also have a color shot of a light blue with dark blue multiple upper body striped & dark blue lower '67 bodied car with KLM & McNamara sponsor that is from brno in 1969 are these all the same car ? I have a number of photos from the net of all the above mentioned cars.  perhaps this should be in another thread ? but since the reinhardt car was brought up here, I thought I'd ask.

  mike in canada

[Jon Mello]

Mike, there were two different Camaros. The first one is the first '67 Donohue car that Reinhardt raced in Europe in '68 with much success. The second one he raced was in '69. This is the first of the '68 Penske Camaros, the one that Sam Posey drove in the middle of the '68 season. This is the car Brian Muir drove with Wiggins-Teape sponsorship. A separate thread for this subject is probably a good idea.


Seattle/Kent Trans-Am coverage from Sports Car Graphic. (Jon Mello Collection)

[Jon Mello]

Seattle/Kent Trans-Am report as found in National Speed Sport News, Oct 9th, 1968. (Jon Mello Collection)



   

[Jon Mello]

Seattle/Kent Trans-Am Report from Competition Press & Autoweek. (Jon Mello Collection)

[Jon Mello]

Mark Donohue, Frank Search (standing) and George Follmer at a press luncheon on October 4th, 1968.


Jon Mello Collection

[Jon Mello]

Seattle/Kent Trans-Am program, entry form, entry lists, pit assignments, etc... all from the collection of Frank Dihartce.

























































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[Jon Mello]

From the Oct. 16, 1968 issue of National Speed Sport News. (Jon Mello Collection)

[Jon Mello]

Late News tidbits from the Oct. 19, 1968 issue of Competition Press & Autoweek. (Jon Mello Collection)

[69Z28-RS]

that's an interesting note re 'one of the Trans Am car manufacturers to homologate independent rear suspensions for '69-1/2' trans am cars, without new tooling...     I assume that was Chevrolet/GM considering that?   re the already existing Corvette IRS???    Can anyone expound on that possibility and what happened to prevent it??

[Jon Mello]

Yes, I think it's pretty obvious that it could only be Chevrolet. They did run tests and found that lap times were not
improved considerably enough to justify the added expense. They ended up putting negative camber into the solid
rear axles by tweaking the axle tubes. I don't know the exact angle they were able to obtain but it couldn't have been
too much or else they would've had a lot of bearing failures during the races.

[69Z28-RS]

and.. I believe there WAS a lot of axle/bearing issues with the service duty rears, as the lack of axles ultimately caused discontinuation of use by racers... although this may not have occurred until the mid 70's and IMSA GT racing?

[Jon Mello]

Gary, there were and still are aftermarket axles that would work. I think people gravitated away from the 12-bolts
because the Ford 9" offered much easier gear changes and more strength,

[hubleyman]

Interesting note about potential use of an Independent Rear Suspension.  Could it have been Pontiac?

I used to own a 1968 Firebird Formula 400 that was built for TransAm racing from brand new (it only had 35 miles on it when I got it in the early 70's).  It had a Corvette IRS, steel flares in the rear and a 68 RS Camaro front end - perhaps some sort of prototype or private party experiment gone wrong???  The story that came with the car was something in the rules changed that wouldn't allow it to be raced back in 68-69 so it just got stuffed away in the back of a shop.  At one time it had a Chev 302 and M22, which I replaced with a Corvette 427 when I drag raced the car for a short while. I eventually set it up for street use with a SBC and sold it in the early 90's.  The IRS and 4 wheel disc brakes was a very nice combo for street driving and a lot of fun, but it was more fun to watch people do a double-take at the Camaro front end on the Firebird rear body...... 

Always wondered what the true story was behind that car???  Charlie 

[Jon Mello]

Charlie, that's an intriguing sounding car. Why don't you post some pics of it in the Firebird thread that has been
started at this link... http://www.camaros.org/forum/index.php?topic=7815.0;all . Perhaps then we can have a
look at it there and see if we can figure out what it was earlier in it's life. Thanks for your post.

[Jon Mello]

Some info from the Oct 30, 1968 issue of National Speed Sport News. (Jon Mello Collection)

Dick Guldstrand went to South America to race a Camaro for a wealthy businessman down there. While there he
built some other Camaros for racing and I confirmed this with him a couple of years ago. He mentioned Ecuador
and Bogota, Columbia as two places where he built Camaros (or where he shipped them to). He also sent some
cars to Mexico. He told me he thought he built about 10 Camaros for road racing back then and he thought the
Camaro he built for Gerry Gregory was the only '69. It didn't sound like he built any 2nd-gen cars for the Trans-Am
series back then. Who knows, maybe one or more of these South American cars still exist? He said there were four.




Tiny Lund was the series champ in the inaugural Nascar GT season.