The Untold Story Of The 427 Super Camaros

In this Rare Cars documentary, we are going over the story of the horsepower renegades that built some of the fastest Chevy Camaros, Chevelles and other cars of the 60s, Motion, Yenko and Nickey Chevrolet.

These dealer-built high performers were part of the golden age of the horsepower wars in which GM special order connections were exploited to give the people what they wanted - speed.

Chapters:
0:00 Intro
1:36 Don Yenko
4:49 Joel Rosen (Motion)
7:37 Nickey Chevrolet & Others
9:05 Sales & Impact

*Note, we are not historians. If you see an error in our research then please mention it in the comments!

[rarecars]

Just so everyone knows - technically other 427s besides the L72s were available in these cars as well!

[ramblerdave]

I briefly owned one of the 2 Yenko Turbo Stinger Vegas (the red one pictured, is identical, may be the car I had), that were sent to GM for emissions duribility testing. One of the engines blew early in the testing (they had to achieve 50, 000 miles with out emission equipment failure), and they gave up on the project. I bought the other car, with 4, 000 miles on it, from Roger Penske Chevrolet in Southfield, Michigan.The original title with it said General Motors Engineering, and it had a racing seat replacing the driver side bucket. Other than that, it was a stock Vega GT coupe, with a blow through turbo setup, with a holley electric fuel pump, and fuel pressure regulator. It had the Bort front and rear spoilers, and I vaguely remember it having traction bars. I saw it on the used car lot, and recognized it as a Yenko, because I had read about the project, in Hot Rod or Car Craft Magazine. On the test drive, I had the luck to line up with a '71 LT1, Z28 Camaro, on Telegraph Rd., at a stoplight. The Camaro was game, and when the light turned green, we took off. We were door to door through 1st and 2nd gear, at about 65 mph, I shifted to 3rd, and a second later the power dropped off, and I backed out of it. At the next light ( Camaro gone now) I repeated the process, with the same result. I was impressed enough with the performance, that I bought it anyway, as is, no warranty. I was just learning to work on cars, but I was pretty sure it was a fuel problem. I couldn't find a mechanic, locally, to attempt the repair, so I wrote a letter to Yenko (that's what we did in late 1971), to see if they could send me any information, that I could use to get a mechanic to work on it. A couple of weeks later, I got a letter back, with a printout of an electrical circuit drawing, for the fuel pump. Still couldnt find anyone with any turbo experience, and took it back to the Penske, and traded it in for a left over new '71 Vega sedan delivery, losing $1200 in the trade. Ironically, another guy in my town, bought it, and blew the engine, about two weeks later, and replaced it with a stock engine. Wish I would have kept it, it would be the rarest Yenko in existence, now. (used Yenkos were not as desirable, then, as they are now!) 😢

[TJRatfink]

NicKey was my go-to for hi-po parts for my '68 SS/RS Camaro. their parts dept. was incredible!

[leifstrong]

Gotta Love the Rumbling slow burberling warm-up of these Big V8s!! Nice Video.

[robwwhit]

Haven't been on the Yenko Camaro Forum in years, the stories I recall were Fredd Gibb had the first Yenko 427 Camaro's on his lot for sale, and were put together by Dick Harrell, very shortly after that it was the other builders that followed suit including Dick Harrell.

[Curtis]

@6:03 never seen a Camaro with that exhaust before.. looks super clean.

[LeeWheatley-ymrx]

Thank you for the very well, put together shows. Its really appreciated, a car guy from the foothills of Tennessee.

[brucesomers]

I just found this show in my feed yesterday, I really like it.

[jakespeed]

Wow, some content and history lesson. I’m lucky to have grown up in the late 60s and early 70s and been around the muscle car era. Your editing skills are fantastic in this video. Good job.!

[BigJoe.]

These cars had some serious hp and torque for the times!

[curtisbaker]

I think that mention of Dick Harrell, who pioneered with Fred Gibb should have been mentioned.
I would request another video to cover 2 other makes - Mr. Norm and Tasca Ford.
Thank you!

[cnance]

Owner of the place I worked had the 427 in his green camaro and it fought idle so bad . Love the lope

[Ecoblu]

After his 68 Chevelle got stolen my dad was looking at a 66 L-72 corvette but insurance was as much as the car payment so it was between a 69 SS396 Nova and a 69 COPO Camaro both $1900 thankfully he chose the latter

[orest]

They basically stuffed corvette engines in Camaros, which looked better at the time in my opinion

[quantumss]

As I remember, Dick Harrel also sold 427 Camaro.

[mindeloman]

The knowledge, science, and technology to make more horsepower had already long been established bedore the muscle car era. WWII aircraft powerplant designers were always on the cutting edge. But during war, when it is all or nothing, a lot of these high horsepower engines had short overhaul periods. Around 300 hours flight time on average. By the time you get into the 50s, putting what was learned in aircraft into car engines had to be done with reliability in mind. And slowly cars had 300plus reliable horsepower that was relatively low maintenance. Unbelievable, really. With very few limitations and Octane at the pump to see them along, engineers could take it as far as they could. Until they couldn't any more.

[BillC]

I live about 10-15 minutes away from Bentleyville, PA and had no clue Yenko got their start there!

[rwright]

Mr Don Yenko had the perfect logo for his cars I think

[alainhernandez]

These things were badass motherloving cars. Just badass

[bobyoung]

I grew up in the HP era and drove Chevys exclusively. And I was fortunate to be selected as the pilot of a pure stock 1969 Chevelle for an entire summer at our local dragway. My current ride is the 5.0 Mustang GT that I bought in 1988.

That said, the EPA was not "anti-performance." They targeted the most egrious contributors to the emissions challenge and also demanded more efficient powerplants to achieve better gas mileage.

As I see it, the real problem was the automakers. They could see the challenges coming but refused to act until it was too late.