Fender Flaring On Trans-Am Camaros

[Steve Holmes]

I am interested in learning of some of the methods used by teams running first gen Camaros for flaring their fenders. It would seem most teams modified the wheel openings to some extent to clear the tires, which grew larger by the season. It appears there was work done on most cars. As independant teams were running 67/68 Camaros by 1969/70/71, it would seem they flared the fenders a little more than on the cars built during 1967/68, as the tires kept getting bigger.

What methods did the teams use for achieving this? Did they add any metal to the lip or did they use other means?

[Jon Mello]

Steve, early on the tires were not that wide and not much was done on independent cars other than maybe rolling the lips of the fenders or doing some trimming. I can tell you that the wheel wells on my car were completely unmodified and even had the stock lip in the back. My car was not lowered out like some other T/A cars of the day as they were going to return it to a street car when they were done racing it. The Penske team cars had custom made wheel tubs in the back that allowed more room on the inside, similar in nature to the mini-tubs you see today. Ron Fournier is shown wailing on the fenders with a hammer to build the fender flares on the '69 team cars in the video "Four Hands on the Wheel". If you don't have that video, you should try and acquire a copy. It has some great content. As tires got wider, then it became necessary to add material to have enough coverage of the tires. They still had to use 8" wide wheels up through 1972 but it was amazing the size of the tire that they were able to fit on those wheels due to the design of the tire sidewalls.

[jvb6648]

Steve there was a Jeff Hoyt in Buffalo N.Y. who raced a 67 or 68 Camaro, he took the rear fenders of a VW and used them on the front. He turned them around so the rear portion of the fender was facing forward so the lower portion would be used to make an air dam. The front VW fenders were used on the rear, not sure how he fitted them. I think it was around '68 or'69 when I saw the car, looked sharp.

[Jon Mello]

I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I thought they were pretty nasty.

http://www.racingsportscars.com/photo/1973/Mid-Ohio-1973-07-15-013.jpg

[oldtransamdriver]

I believe this was the 69 camaro built by the Dimension Racing group for Peter Schwartzot to race in 4 1970 T/A races.  Jeff Hoyt was a member of this gang and I knew him back in the day.
This car was sold to Warren Agor and was later raced in IMSA GT and also later T/A again.

I will get the scoop from Peter on this.

[Steve Holmes]

Hey thanks for this info guys. Yikes, that Camaro sure is wild looking! There was a Holden Monaro raced in New Zealand that had VW Beetle fenders grafted to the rear to form large flares. In Australia, Allan Moffat fitted a set of rear fenders off a Ford Transit Jumbo van to the rear of his beautiful Kar-Kraft '69 Mustang to house the ever-growing tires. I guess it was easier to do this than build a set of moulds from scratch.

[1109RWHP]

Here you go!

http://www.camaros.org/forum/index.php?topic=10802.30

[jvb6648]

Nice pic. Well 30 plus years ago I thought they were sharp, today I would have to give it a polite "different". I supposed it saved some fabrication time.

[Jon Mello]

I believe this was the 69 camaro built by the Dimension Racing group for Peter Schwartzot to race in 4 1970 T/A races.  Jeff Hoyt was a member of this gang and I knew him back in the day.
This car was sold to Warren Agor and was later raced in IMSA GT and also later T/A again.

I will get the scoop from Peter on this.

Robert, this is the Dimension Racing photo you sent me previously. The car is not a '69 body style and, as such, doesn't seem to be the car Schwartzott ran in 1970.

[Steve Holmes]

Here you go!

http://www.camaros.org/forum/index.php?topic=10802.30

Oh wow, that is great! Thanks for the link.

[Steve Holmes]

Steve, early on the tires were not that wide and not much was done on independent cars other than maybe rolling the lips of the fenders or doing some trimming. I can tell you that the wheel wells on my car were completely unmodified and even had the stock lip in the back. My car was not lowered out like some other T/A cars of the day as they were going to return it to a street car when they were done racing it. The Penske team cars had custom made wheel tubs in the back that allowed more room on the inside, similar in nature to the mini-tubs you see today. Ron Fournier is shown wailing on the fenders with a hammer to build the fender flares on the '69 team cars in the video "Four Hands on the Wheel". If you don't have that video, you should try and acquire a copy. It has some great content. As tires got wider, then it became necessary to add material to have enough coverage of the tires. They still had to use 8" wide wheels up through 1972 but it was amazing the size of the tire that they were able to fit on those wheels due to the design of the tire sidewalls.

Thanks Jon, yes its quite notable the dramatic size difference in tires during the very early Trans-Am years compared to that of 1970/71. There was as much a tire war going on as an auto manufacturer war. The tubbing of the Penske cars is interesting. Do you know if the shell Rusty Jowett got from Penske received the same treatment?

I need to track down the Four Hands On The Wheel video. Sounds interesting.

[Jon Mello]

Steve,

The red '68 Rusty Jowett car does not have the same wheel tubs that were fabricated from scratch that the Penske cars had. It appears that the may have added a strip of metal to the stock tub and moved it inward by the corresponding amount. Below is what a lot of independents did to increase clearance on the inside of the rear wheel wells.

[Jon Mello]

This picture gives you a good view of the size of the tire they were fitting on an 8" wide wheel in 1968 and the tire contact patch only got wider as the years went on.

[oldtransamdriver]

John, you are right.  It is the ex Nichter/Jowett car.  Pardon the Sometimers.

Robert

[Steve Holmes]

Fantastic info and pics Jon, thanks so much!

Studying some of the other 67/68 cars, it seems there were numerous different approaches to solving tire clearance issues. The Dick Guldstrand '67 Camaro had/has quite prominent flares, which don't appear to have the standard Camaro trim indent around the outer lip. So I assume these were quite heavily modified, perhaps with new metal added?

Another approach was the Firebird Jerry Titus drove in the final race in 1968. It appears the fenders on this car simply had the outer 1 inch or so of metal removed from the top part of the lip. Was this just part of the hurried preparation that took place when converting the car from a Camaro to a Firebird, or were they like this when raced by Jon Ward?

[Jon Mello]

Steve, the Guldstrand car did not have flares like that back in the '60s. Those flares that you see on the car now were done when Bobby Joe McDonald restored the car in the late '80s. You were not really supposed to add or remove metal. You were supposed to reshape the wheel well with a hammer for extra clearance but the reality is that some people did add metal and reshape the wheel opening lip and they did not get hassled about it.

The fenders on Jon Ward's Camaro at Riverside in '68 are the same shape as when Titus drove it at Kent as a Firebird a month later. Much more radical than a stock fender but apparently the tech people had no problem with it.

[Steve Holmes]

Wow, great pics Jon! I think thats the first time I've seen the Jon Ward Camaro as a Camaro. Very interesting. I assume when it was converted to a Firebird, they simply cut some Firebird 'gills' into the rear quarters rather than replace the whole rear quarter panel? Like you say, the fenders are just as they were when it became the Firebird.

This car still has similar fenders now with the upper lip cut away. Did the fenders remain this way throughout its life or was it restored this way for historical accuracy?

Jon, who raced the Guldstrand '67 Camaro after Guldstrand? Did he drive this car in '68? 

One more question. In the magazine Vintage Motorsport when they did the Trans-Am history series back in the mid-1990s, Bill Mayberry was interviewed about the first Penske Camaro. He said they "flared the fenders by rolling them with baseball bats". What did he mean by this? Did they simply roll a bat between the fender and tire to to press the fender lip out away from the tire?

[Jon Mello]

Wow, great pics Jon! I think thats the first time I've seen the Jon Ward Camaro as a Camaro. Very interesting. I assume when it was converted to a Firebird, they simply cut some Firebird 'gills' into the rear quarters rather than replace the whole rear quarter panel? Like you say, the fenders are just as they were when it became the Firebird.

          Yes, Craig Fisher told me years ago that they added Firebird gills to the quarter panel.

This car still has similar fenders now with the upper lip cut away. Did the fenders remain this way throughout its life or was it restored this way for historical accuracy?

          No, none of the fenders on the ex-Ward/Titus car today are what was on there back then. I saw the car before it was restored and so did a few others that I know.

Jon, who raced the Guldstrand '67 Camaro after Guldstrand? Did he drive this car in '68? 

          Sam Coniglio out of Glendale, CA was the new owner when Dana Chevrolet sold the car after the '67 season. Guldstrand only drove it at the Riverside Trans-Am race during '68 as far as I know and it no longer had Dana sponsorship by then.

One more question. In the magazine Vintage Motorsport when they did the Trans-Am history series back in the mid-1990s, Bill Mayberry was interviewed about the first Penske Camaro. He said they "flared the fenders by rolling them with baseball bats". What did he mean by this? Did they simply roll a bat between the fender and tire to to press the fender lip out away from the tire?

          Well, I wasn't there of course, but that would be my interpretation of what he said.

[group/7]

great stuff as always jon ! I had come across a photo of that ward camaro, dated '68, somewhere on the net. had meant to ask about it, that was pretty radical for the time ! I thought the picture had the wrong date. thanks for the explanation of the rule bending.

mike....group/7

[Steve Holmes]

Wow, great pics Jon! I think thats the first time I've seen the Jon Ward Camaro as a Camaro. Very interesting. I assume when it was converted to a Firebird, they simply cut some Firebird 'gills' into the rear quarters rather than replace the whole rear quarter panel? Like you say, the fenders are just as they were when it became the Firebird.

          Yes, Craig Fisher told me years ago that they added Firebird gills to the quarter panel.

This car still has similar fenders now with the upper lip cut away. Did the fenders remain this way throughout its life or was it restored this way for historical accuracy?

          No, none of the fenders on the ex-Ward/Titus car today are what was on there back then. I saw the car before it was restored and so did a few others that I know.

Jon, who raced the Guldstrand '67 Camaro after Guldstrand? Did he drive this car in '68?

          Sam Coniglio out of Glendale, CA was the new owner when Dana Chevrolet sold the car after the '67 season. Guldstrand only drove it at the Riverside Trans-Am race during '68 as far as I know and it no longer had Dana sponsorship by then.

One more question. In the magazine Vintage Motorsport when they did the Trans-Am history series back in the mid-1990s, Bill Mayberry was interviewed about the first Penske Camaro. He said they "flared the fenders by rolling them with baseball bats". What did he mean by this? Did they simply roll a bat between the fender and tire to to press the fender lip out away from the tire?

          Well, I wasn't there of course, but that would be my interpretation of what he said.

Thanks Jon, great info!

[Jon Mello]

You're welcome, Steve. The fender clearance disparity between the Guldstrand car and the Ward car, both seen at the same race/same year, is quite striking.

[Steve Holmes]

Yes, I agree! In fact, from that angle, the Jon Ward car actually looks a little bizarre. He must have owned a hell of a big hammer, because those fenders are really a long way from standard.

[firstgenaddict]

We used to clearance first gen rear wheel wells with a piece of 2.5" or 3" pipe and roll the lips like the baseball bat method.

[Steve Holmes]

We used to clearance first gen rear wheel wells with a piece of 2.5" or 3" pipe and roll the lips like the baseball bat method.

Thanks, thats great to know. So this was relatively common practice? Did it stretch the metal to create a flare or did it have more the effect of flattening the inner lip to give more tire clearance?

[Jon Mello]

Steve, early on when tires sizes were not all that wide, especially on a non-factory entry, a rolled fender lip might do the trick. Sometimes instead of rolling the lip upward, I've seen it where somebody has made cuts every three inches or so and hammered the short segments upward so they would not interfere with the tire. By '69 I figure there was probably nobody left who didn't have some type of actual fender flare on their car due to the width of the tires.

[Steve Holmes]

I got to see the 'baseball bat' method in action last weekend when one of our New Zealand Historic Muscle Car guys was having trouble with his front tires rubbing against the fender after having made some castor changes to his '65 Mustang fastback. A tubular jack handle was used to roll the lip out to give extra clearance. It was certainly effective and produced the clearance needed, although the front fenders will need repainting. But it was a quick-fix done at the track to keep racing, and was pretty cool. Not to mention, pretty old-school.

[Jon Mello]

Steve, there's also the air chisel method of getting more tire clearance, but only when there's money and championship points on the line.

[Steve Holmes]

Ha ha ha, so true Jon! Neat photo, and very dramatic.

[Jon Mello]

I thought you'd get a chuckle out of that. 

[Steve Holmes]

Rather than start a whole new thread for one quirky question, I just thought I'd post this on here. Can anyone tell me why it was common practice for Trans-Am teams to paint the interior, trunk, and engine bay a separate color from the body? The most popular color was light grey, but there were other variations too. This is something that wasn't really practiced outside the US. In most other countries, the interior, engine bay, and trunk were all painted the same colour as the outer body, because it was easier and quicker. There is a lot of work involved in masking off those areas to paint a different color. 

[MO]

Not Trans-Am, but we used light grey on the chassis to observe any cracking. Any light color would be the same, but grey is a good neutral color for any exterior color.

Post 302!!

[Steve Holmes]

Thanks, yes, I figured that to be the most logical reason for it. But then, some, if not all the Kar-Kraft Mustangs had a dark speckled grey color.

[Jon Mello]

Steve, the Javelin team also used a zolatone style of paint on their interiors like some of the Mustangs did. I think the light gray was chosen for the chassis and engine compartment on the Penske cars to make any oil leaks or chassis cracks more easily recognizable. A lighter color in the interior would yield a cooler interior temp, which would be helpful during the long races. Yes, it required more work to mask everything off but people liked to follow Penske's lead, Success breeds imitation.

[Steve Holmes]

Thanks Jon, thats excellent. I hadn't even considered the idea that the lighter color could help interior temperature levels. That makes sense too, given how long the races were, and that the drivers didn't have power steering. Would have been an immense work out.

[1109RWHP]

Zolotone=camouflage!  You can hide a lot of hacked up and modified stuff just by painting it with some splatter paint.

[yenkomark]

  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.