John Z as a young foreman working the line what was your first impression of this ( '67-'69 ) new pony car called Camaro? Did you owned one at the time or was it just another car? I know the bigger car were popular back then and did you know about the COPO 427 '69 camaro's then? I like the first person history.
Those of us at Willow Run were introduced to the new Camaro first-hand, as the first 1,100 Norwood Camaros were shipped to Willow Run to have the steering linkages changed; there had been a heat-treat process failure at Chevrolet-Buffalo (where the steering linkages were made), and it wasn't found and contained until 1,100 cars had been built.
We shut down production at Willow Run, cleaned out the Final Process Repair Department on a Friday, and converted the two light mechanical repair lines on Saturday to a disassembly line to remove the steering linkage, and an assembly line to install the new certified-OK linkages from Buffalo, re-roll-tested and re-set toe-in, re-shipped the Camaros to their original destinations, and resumed normal production on Monday. On Saturday we burned-up every pitman arm puller in the plant, bought every one we could find at every auto parts store in Ypsilanti, and got the President of Kent-Moore (GM's Service Tool supplier) out of bed Friday night to get every pitman arm puller they had in their warehouse to Willow Run.
That exercise gave us a first-hand look at the new Camaro; in those days they scheduled the plain-Jane low-option cars first and introduced complexity gradually as they ramped-up, so we saw mostly six-cylinder cars, bench seats, and manual transmissions (three on the tree).
At that time my personal cars were a '65 Tri-Power GTO and a '65 Corvette; I later sold the GTO and bought a new '67 Impala SS427 from the Engineering Fleet.