200,000-mile 1969 Camaro is proof your car is bored
Not everyone with a vintage car is willing to treat it like any other vehicle. Fewer still are willing to put 200,000 miles on a 1969 Camaro.
When we saw this photo on social media, we knew there had to be a story behind it. We asked the Camaro’s owner, Dominick Saad, to fill us in. Here’s the story of one family’s beloved and well-used ride, mostly in Dom’s own words.
Dom’s father bought the Camaro in 1989 for just $1500. It sat around, for the most part, until Dom approached his 16th birthday. His dad gave him the car, and the two worked on it together, “along with help from some of his friends who knew more than we did,” Dom says.
The car was originally equipped with a 307-cubic-inch V-8 and a Turbo 350 three-speed automatic transmission. The Saads and their friends removed the original powertrain to be rebuilt and sent off the body for paint. The Cortez Silver car was resprayed in its original color, this time with black stripes. Dom got his license in 2011 and used the refreshed Camaro as his daily driver.
“Not even a year later, in 2012, I was on the highway with a buddy heading to grab some food, and we crested a hill and found traffic at a complete stop. I slammed the brakes and was almost stopped when a heavy-duty crane truck lost control next to me and swerved into me from the side, pushing me into the car in front of me, and pushing him into the truck and boat in front of him.”
The collision wasn’t Dom’s fault. However, the at-fault driver fled the scene, causing a bit of drama and dragging out the process of getting the Camaro sorted. Since the damage was entirely cosmetic—the alignment didn’t even suffer—Dom had a few months to drive the car before it was treated to repaint number two.
“I decided to make the best out of a bad situation and started having some of my buddies at school sign the car, much like you would a cast on a broken arm,” Dom says.
Teachers at his school signed it. So did strangers at gas stations and grocery stores. Dom began to leave a Sharpie on the car’s hood when he parked it in public; to his delight, he’d come back to new signatures every time. Today, the signature-filled door and fender are hanging in his garage.
Once all the accident paperwork was sorted, the Camaro finally went in for bodywork. After three months at the body shop the car returned, this time with a color change: Fathom Blue with white stripes. Dom quickly realized the work hadn’t been done well. The paint chipped and bubbled. A large section of filler on the quarter panel began to delaminate.
“At first I was livid,” Dom says. “I was of the typical, ‘can’t have a single scratch, needs to shine always’ mentality back then.” However, as the car began to show more and more flaws, his stress about maintaining a perfect car melted away. A new philosophy emerged: “Why worry about all this that I can’t do anything about? Just drive the damn thing and have a blast!”
That was ten years ago, and Dom has been racking up the miles on his Camaro ever since.
Dom also changed his attitude towards how he modified his Camaro.
“As a teenager, I thought modifying everything was the cool thing to do, so I began changing things, adding chrome and aftermarket parts,” he says. However, he learned that those custom parts aren’t necessarily carried by every mom-and-pop auto parts store, so a busted component could lead to a major hassle. What every store does carry, on the other hand, are factory replacement parts, especially for first-gen Chevy small-block engines.
A few years ago, Dom did a semi-restoration of the Camaro using factory-correct parts, including a wiring harness, factory gauges and woodgrain dash, rebuilt brakes, and new bearings and axles in the rear end.
“Though I still wish the car did look a bit better, I’ve found it much more enjoyable to just drive and enjoy it versus worrying about looks.” —Dominick Saad
After the 700-R4 transmission left him stranded 450 miles from home one day, he went a bit overboard. “I wanted to make sure that never happened again, so I basically built a drag [racing] transmission to go in a less-than-300-hp car!”
“Not only was I starting to really like the look of it more, but I also liked the reliability a lot as well. I realized there was plenty of performance to be had even with factory-correct parts,” he said.
The Camaro is currently powered by a 350-cubic-inch small-block engine, along with the aforementioned 700-R4 four-speed automatic and the factory 10-bolt rear axle with 2.73:1 gears, perfect for highway cruising. The 350 is dressed in period-correct “day two” Z/28 parts. The intake and valve covers, both aluminum, are GM-factory. The Camaro’s even running points ignition.
Dom still has the Camaro’s original engine. He plans on getting the 307 back into the car with a good set of camel-hump heads plus all the Z/28 goodies currently on the 350.
“Of course, the car will never be badged a Z/28, as it isn’t one and isn’t trying to be one. I’m just taking advantage of the Z/28 parts being higher-performance yet still ‘factory correct,’” said Dom. Since he wants a cruise-happy car, he’s building the drivetrain for reliability and efficiency, not massive power. When he reinstalls the 307 engine, he’s hoping for around 300 hp.
“Back when the 350 in [the Camaro] now was newer, I would cruise around 25 mpg on the highway at 80 [mph] at just under 2000 rpm.” He tweaked and tuned a custom-built Holley double-pumper carburetor over the course of about three months to get those results, but the effort was worth it.
“Driving has always been a form of therapy for me, so if anything was going on that was making me mad or sad or whatever, it could pretty easily be cured with an aimless drive somewhere.”
The car also served well as an adventure vehicle, especially in the mines, lakes, and ghost towns of Dom’s native state of Nevada. “The car has probably seen more Nevada back roads than many trucks have!”
“I think in the summer of 2016, there was not a single weekend where we didn’t take the car on some sort of day trip somewhere,” Dom said.
They didn’t stop at day trips, either. The Camaro has been to Vancouver in Canada’s British Columbia, Washington State, Oregon, Idaho, California, Arizona, Utah, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, South Dakota, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas.
The Camaro is no longer the commuter it once was. Dom now lives in Idaho and owns several other vehicles, including a company truck that he drives for work. Still, he makes sure the Camaro gets weekly exercise, all year long. Dom refuses to garage any of his vehicles: “I always figured you can’t take ’em with you when you go, so enjoy ’em while you can!”
He has a few secrets to keeping his car alive over 12 winters. The first is being lucky enough to drive in areas of the U.S. where roads aren’t treated with salt. He also has a strict regimen of undercoating the car each fall.
It may not be his commuter, but the Camaro remains Dom’s go-to road-tripper. When we spoke to Dom, he had just returned from a 4800-mile, 11-day trip from Idaho to Arkansas, up via the northern route and back via the southern one. The car performed beautifully as usual—and it’s nowhere near retirement.
“We will be doing a very similar trip again next year, and eventually I would like to have driven the car in all provinces in Canada, and all the U.S. states with the exception of Hawaii. It’s also a huge goal of mine to drive it up to Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada, and get it up into the Arctic Circle!”
It doesn’t take a whole lot of horsepower and perfect paint to enjoy a car. In Dom’s case, it might just take an extra or two set of ignition points.
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Awesome story and great to see an old car that gets driven. I’m guessing this story will not go over too well with the crowd that gets upset if someone accidentally leaves a finger print on their window at a car show.
Thank you!
Haha, I always let people and kids or really whoever wants to climb in there and get a picture. They always love it!
So, since this is a Hagerty website, is the car still insured with Hagerty insurance? I’m guessing no, since they frown on insuring collector cars that are driven daily. Sort of goes against the Hagerty credo of driving and enjoying our cars.
No sir I have a normal car full coverage policy with State Farm with an agreed on value. I drive to much for classic insurance haha.
(Driven like like it was driven it in 69) I’m not sure what to think— Doesn’t that mean the car won’t be around or restorable in a few yrs? It will just turn into pop cans–
In ’69, Camaros and Mustangs were just cars, nothing special.
You apparently weren’t alive in ’69.
The insanity of a ’69 Camaro being called “just another car.”
I’ve been doing this for 12 years out west. No rust on the car to speak of. Besides, 99.9% of parts on this car are reproduced even to the degree of being factory correct. You can basically build a 2023 “69” camaro that looks like it just rolled off the assembly like out of all new parts.
No aluminum in a 1969 car.
I bought and ordered froim the factory a new 1968 Camaro, 327 4 speed, air, and the rally package. The car looked great, it wasn’t as fast as I thought it should be, had a 3.54 axle. It was great for pulling My 16foot deep vee boat. It had that front sub frame, and that was the part that I hated. It handled like a rhino on a wet clay bank. The best part was Is became my down Payment, three years later on my new Porsche 911T!!!!!!
Haha love it. Hoping to pick up some jet skis myself soon to pull with the Camaro!
Love it
Agreed !!
Thank you!
Why would you have 273 gears with over drive? Why would you put a 307 no performance boat anchor with good parts on it that basically do no good other drinking gas ?
I kept the 2.73’s and put in an overdrive because I built the car to cruise the highway on long road trips. With this setup I averaged 25mpg at 80mph.
The 307 is going back in because it’s the numbers matching engine and with a jump up in compression and a good set of heads, it’s still a 5 liter engine that shouldn’t have any issues giving me 300hp to cruise around with. Not all cars have to be fast and 100% performance based, some are just built for fun cruising!
A 307 never came with any performance parts (2 bbl only) It is a small block chevy, meaning it can be up graded with better heads, compression and a cam. It basically a stroked 283. It is a much better platform than the later 305.
I’ve got a 74 firebird formula 400 restored it in 09 put in low gears fried the tires for a year, put back the factory rear end 2.74 gears. now a freeway cruiser 16 mpg. drive it a lot, hardly see any old cars on the road these days. best story ever on Hagerty. takes a little touch up from the rock dings, big deal.
That’s awesome! Not a lot of love for the highway gears these days haha.
I have owned big block Chevys big block fords and big block Plymouth all 4 speed cars
My last car was a stroker vega all driven back and forth to work 40 miles round trip . Today 67 years old and drive a 383 camaro 4 speed. Point these car were made to drive and enjoy and showed the greatness of the big 3.Both my wife and I drive my camaro every chance we get. Oh yeah it’s got some scratches but I don’t stop driving it Dom don’t stop driving yours
That’s so awesome I love hearing things like this!! I’ll be driving this until I’m basically forced out of it by age or death haha. Never planning on stopping.
Awesome Story. Doesn’t Make Me Feel Bad About The Scratch On My Mustang. Never Understood Why People Don’t Drive Their Cars, That’s The Fun Of It!
Dom, you are an automotive Zen Master, sir! Your attitude towards your ‘69 Camaro is so great and helps keep these muscle car dreams alive for not just owners, but everyone!
Perfect, numbers cars easily warrant their personal enclosed transporter (just one guy’s opinion) but for the rest of us, we should let the world see history on the highway, no matter the speed or gas mileage!
My wife and I are about to receive our ‘72 Chevelle SS396 after a year of restoration and just from seeing photos, the result is truly stunning—so how we will react to scratches and a slow undoing of perfection remains to be seen. But I sincerely hope we can have just a fraction of your Car Zen and shake off the bumps and bruises to really enjoy our classic.
I hope we too can share “Swamp Thing” with the Hagerty community very soon. (Ok, the color is no longer a mystery.)
Thanks for sharing your story, Dom, and here’s to the next 200k miles! Live free or die, and drive on, bud!
Best story I’ve read in a long time!
Great Job keeping up the pleasure! As a retired shop owner, my only suggestion is to add an MSD to the point/coil ignition system. Takes the electrical flash load off of the contacts. Keep the points system, it can always be “jimmied” with a rubber band, if the spring breaks!
Thank you! I haven’t really had any luck with more modern ignition systems. I have been through several different electronic ignition setups and non have lasted me more than 20-30k miles before leaving me stranded. Been having great luck with points since I switched back.
As an old GM head, the only change I’d make is an HEI distributor. Keep a spare coil pack and igntion module (both can be swapped in a rainstorm with a flashlight if need be) and you may eek some more power and milage out of her. But love the car, love the story!
Hey Dom, I just want to say how impressed I am how much you drive your Camaro. I own a 69 Camaro SS350 I bought when I was 17, have owned it now for 31yrs. It was my daily driver for 17 years. When I was 19 I rebuilt the engine, transmission, carb, put in a Pertronix ignition, front suspension all by myself and it still is running the same with the same original gear today -I’ve put about 130,000 miles on it since 1992 and the matching numbers 350/TH350 combo runs like a champ.
I have a few questions for you -would love to have your email so we can talk more, but I will ask some questions here. 1) What kind of oil/filter do you like to use? 2)Where do you like to shop for auto parts -where do you find the quality is best? 3)When traveling, how do you keep your car safe -do you have any anti-theft devices or plan?4)Also when traveling, what sorts of tools/parts do you like to bring with you?
I sometimes feel so much fear about having my pride and joy stolen if I took a long road trip to new places. These cars are getting pretty valuable and your attitude is inspiring, so thank you!
Love the way those wide-oval tires fill the wheel wells. There’s an epidemic at car shows these days of owners putting too-small tires on their 14 or 15 inch wheels, leaving all that negative space in the wheel wells. It can be the nicest car/bodywork/paint but I won’t give the car a second look if it has those roller-skate size tires. How can the owner’s not see that they’re ruining the look? Forget what the non-muscle-car-owning tire salesman says about handling, these cars need to look right!
Thank you! I’m definitely a fan of bias plys. Most people think I’m crazy haha but they really do handle better than a 15″ radial. Have to remember the suspension on these cars was designed around the handling characteristics of a bias tire!
A true first Gen driver.
My wife Diane says give her a call when you’ve got 285,000 miles like her 65 Pontiac LeMans. You can see it on the cover of the November 2018 issue of the National GTO Association Magazine – The Legend. We agree with people like Dominick who actually drive their cars.