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For the 1969 model year there were 243,085 Camaros manufactured. Do not form opinions about them because you've looked at 50 cars.

First gen Camaros have what GM identified as a "steering knuckle" same L-R. The steering arms bolted to the knuckles. I believe 2nd gens have a 1-pc assembly.

In my experience much of what people assume about drivetrain date codes relative to the car is incorrect.

Our 06E '67 Z/28 had a July 6 engine, a March 20 rear axle and a June 23 trans. All OE components, POP to back it up. A good thing too since conventional wisdom would have people believing the axle was not original. The car also had its original alternator dated December 1966.

A fluke? Nope. I have the POP from a friends' long-lost 06A L78 car:  April 29 engine, May 6 axle, March 14 trans.

Nope, about 99.99% of 1969 Camaros used the same manual or power steering gear. If you ordered N44 on a non-SS/Z/28 the only difference was the longer pitman/shorter steering arms. Drum brake N44 cars received different backing plates.

It was painted with the same finish as the top of the dash, interior color with suede additive.

Z/28 standard fast-ratio steering was acomplished by steering linkage changes. The standard manual steering gear was utilized with a longer pitman arm and shorter steering arms.

Z/28s ordered with N44 [very few] also had a fast-ratio manual steering gear. It makes for miserable driving.

All 1969 Camaros with power steering used the same steering gear. Z/28s & SS so equipped used the fast ratio linkage pieces. A Z/28 with ps will have a pump with a deep groove pulley.

Correction:

The 11/71 rev of the R-M 1969 Chevrolet colors lists trunk paint as #844 black-gray-aqua multiflek.

We used it and it matched.

There was an excellent book "The Great Camaro" written many years ago. In it there is an assembly line photo of the front sheet metal being positioned on a '67 body. The firewall is clearly body color.

The photo could be staged, could be a pilot car. Take it with a grain of salt. No one has seen every car built.

The paint used was described in period refinshing literature as "blue-grey-aqua multi-fleck".

Having the correct paint is only half the battle. It is difficult to replicate the pattern and spatter size. Back in the '80s we used OE paint and never did get it to match in a side-by-side comparison with an original.

I was fortunate to be involved in the restoration of 2 high-end cars: a '67 Z/28 and a '69 ZL1. You may be suprised to hear that under my direction NEITHER was done with any underbody overspray. Both have the nice uniform 30% gloss black finish.  My reasoning was that it is sort of expected [even 10 years ago] and it is difficult to reproduce overspray correctly given the limitations of most paint facilities.

Were I to get involved in another nut-and-bolt resto today [pass the Tums...] I would seriously consider it however. Brian Caudell did an orange COPO Camaro some years back with underbody overspray and did a nice job of it. 

Arno I've been involved with the cars for 30+ years and know whereof I speak.

Chassis, underbody, undercarriage call it what you want. From the rear axle forward they have primer and body-color overspray in varying degrees. There have been several excellent chassis photos of OE paint cars posted and they all have overspray: Charlie Lillards Daytona yellow '69 Z was about 50% yellow underneath. An old issue of the Camaro enthusiast had chassis photos of a Hugger orange '69 SS coupe, plenty of orange on the floor pans. They also did a spread on a Z11 that had so much grey primer on the underbody they re-did it that way. The b&w underbody photos of the Daytona yellow #3 ZL1 in the 8-69 Hi-Perf Cars clearly show a yellow or grey underbody as it is much lighter than the subframe.

John Z worked for Chevrolet. The bodies were painted by Fisher before they "went through the wall" to Chevrolet.

Once again, the beautiful, uniform 30% gloss black underbody is show car stuff. They did not look like that as built.

Having spent more time under 1st gen Camaros than in them I assure you they were not uniformly 30% gloss black.

It is likely the 1st painting step after the body shell was fabbed was to coat the underbody with some sort of black finish. The next step was grey primer, this being done with doors & trunk lid attached as there is no paint under the hinges. This was done manually until 1970 when bodies were dipped in red primer. The undercarriage was not masked during primer app and there is always primer on the underbody in varying degrees. The trans tunnel on our '67 was almost entirely grey. The final color coat was also done without masking the underbody which is quite obvious when looking at an OE paint Camaro in a lighter color. I've seen Z11 underbodies that were almost completely white. At some point the firewall blackout was applied. This was done with a masking unit loosely placed over the cowl. This left a feathered edge across the top, not the taped line incorrectly done on many restorations. There was a final underbody step that involved touching up areas that were visible such as the rear wheel wells. Take the rear axle snubber brackets off a '69 and you will find body color on the frame rails. On Van Nuys Camaros the fuel tanks were often painted during this step. All wheel wells then had undercoating applied.

The beautiful, uniform 30% gloss black underbody is show car stuff. They did not look like that as built.

When the ignition switch was added to the column they were designed to fit a number of models. Therefore most of the "69 Camaro" tilt columns on the market weren't born there. The main difference as I recall is the configuration of the reverse lock arm at the bottom.

If you buy one make sure the lower flange is included. On the standard column the flange is part of the steering shaft. On a tilt the shaft is splined for a separate forged flange, tilt only.

There were 2 68 front spoiler designs. The first design, used for most of '68 production, was smaller and fastened only to the lower body panel, no braces. The second design was larger and had additional braces for mounting.

With some exceptions D96 fender stripes were included with style trim group as stated in the ordering info.

The exceptions were SS and Z/28; no D96. Ordering info also states one stripe option per car so ordering any other stripe [D90 or DX1] would eliminate the D96 stripes.

Z10 and Z11 were also exceptions in that they received both Z/28-style and D96 fender stripes. Z/28s did not receieve D96 stripes as a normative practice. It is thought that a few very early production Z/28s had both.