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Messages - motorcitymike

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Reply to Paul (1968RSZ28),
I don't think I should put my VIN number out on the internet.  What does everyone think about that. 

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I've got to confess even now at 66 years old, I misbehave every time I take the car out.  The little 302 whispers in my ear "beat me!"  and I oblige.  Love the rev sound and getting a little tire chirp out of banging the gears.   :P

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Here's photo of me at 20 in 1970 when I bought the car for $2000.  It already had the header panel crunched which cost me $300. to have fixed.  It has Goodyear Polyglass GT's but they were upsized to G70-15. 

4
Hey the photo of the car and it's roll bar worked! 

I hope you agree the unrestored condition is pretty pristine.  Hard to imagine going door to door on a race track with it when it was new.  John claimed he could pull the Corvettes in the straight away and then loose out to them in the corners.  He did have to replace a front fender and grill header panel.  Said he was plowing a Corvette in the door sideways at a Milwaukee Mile road course.

He told me a story about a post race incident in Minnesota.  He and his girl friend were in the process of changing out the racing tires for the street tires for the drive home.  Dick Trickle had been in the event too.  Trickle pulled up to John's pit in his loaded hauler and shouted in shock "Your DROVE that thing?"   ;D

The dealership (Hult) caught on real fast when John come in Mondays with burned up disc brake pads expecting them to be under warranty. 

John did blow up the MO motor in Iowa street racing a kid during a trip to California. (Can you imagine grinding a 4.10:1 gear from Wisconsin to California?  The local Chevy dealer fortunately sleeved the motor under warranty so I still retain the numbers matching block.  Most dealers would have swapped in a service block and my MO would have been bye bye forever.  John never told me this stuff when, as an 18 year old kid, was buying the car.  He told me this stuff recently when I reconnected with him. 


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Thanks for the support so far.  No the family has been "busy" settling the original owner's estate and I prefer to honor their healing process. 

I am trying to post a photo but they are all to big.

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I am second owner of a numbers matching British Green1968 Z/28 Camaro which I have had since the Fall of 1970.   The previous owner claimed he and a friend both bought Z/28’s from Hult Chevrolet in Madison, WI. in the Spring of 1968.  They drove their Z/28’s to work Monday through Friday and raced them on the weekends.  My evidence of this was a pattern of roll bar bolt holes in the rear floor boards under the back seat and cut-out flanges in the stock exhaust system to open the pipes up.  There was a copy of a FIA ruIe book in the glove box.  I drove my Camaro as a kid for about four years as a daily driver and after that preserved the car and began to show it as a hobby. Approximately 1990 I met a fellow Z/28 owner from Madison at a Camaro event in Indianapolis who claimed to own the other Camaro and had the roll bar that came from my car in his rafters at home.  I eventually bought this. 

 Fast forward to 2015, I researched and found a phone number for the previous owner of my car.  Although in serious health condition, John was happy to talk at length stories about himself and my Camaro.  It was then that he confirmed he drove the car to race tracks with a set of racing tires stacked in the back and campaigned fiercely as SCCA A/Stock #28 owned and driven as John Theios in events at several midwest tracks in the Summers of 1968 and 1969 including:
Elkhart Lake, WI
Brainard, MN
Meadowdale, Il
Blackhawk Farms in Rockton, WI
Grattan Raceway in Belding, MI
Milwaukee Mile, Milwaukee, WI

During our phone conversations, John claimed to have photos and memorabilia of the car racing but I couldn’t encourage him enough to send them or copies before he passed away in 2015.  All his possessions have gone to his family in California.  I am in search of records and photos confirming this car was registered as an SCCA race car which would only add to the charisma of an already novel car.  So far I came up empty handed. Any leads with information or sites I might explore would be appreciated.

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