The Cool Car Chronicles: 13 Glorious Years with a Second-Gen Camaro

Thinking back five decades, I remember Nevada’s Mount Rose Highway (then State Route 27, now 431) as pure delight for a serious driver in a good-handling car. Winding some 6000 feet up the mountain from U.S. 395 south of Reno to the town of Incline Village on Lake Tahoe’s northeast shore, it offered long, sweeping, slightly banked curves connected by a variety of tighter twists and turns. There were some scary drop-offs defended by spindly guardrails, but the pavement was pool-table smooth with little traffic and few worries about police pursuit.

I drove that great road as often as possible in the nine months I lived in Reno in 1973. I loved Lake Tahoe—North America’s largest alpine lake, its second deepest, and one of its coldest—partly because it was beautiful but also because, once there, you could enjoy a beach, a local art show, a good meal, live entertainment and (if so inclined) one of Nevada’s legal casinos. You could also circumnavigate its rim on twisty two lanes with spectacular views.

What was my ride on those wonderful roads? My fine-handling 1970-1/2 Chevy Camaro, one of the best-looking American cars of its (or any other) era—my opinion, but one shared by many. That second-gen Camaro even tied for third—with its Pontiac Firebird cousin and Porsche’s 911—in a 1982 Car and Driver survey of the “10 Most Beautiful Cars in the World,” losing to only the Jaguar E-Type and the Cord 810/812. (Full disclosure: I wrote that story but had no influence over our surveys of top auto designers, critics and CD readers.)

I ordered that beauty after returning to Chevrolet Engineering from three years of U.S. Navy active duty in 1969. I had raced a Triumph TR4-A for one season in 1966 before driving it to Newport, Rhode Island, for Navy OCS, then to California for training, then back for shipboard duty in Charleston, South Carolina. I reluctantly sold it and bought a new 1968 Chevy II coupe, but that handsome, surprisingly fun and affordable (Camaro-based) ride was stolen—along with my entire 8-track tape collection—one weekend in New York City. Then I settled for a well-used 1961 Buick Special wagon, which served me well (sometimes in lieu of a hotel room) for the rest of my service time.

Once back to work, however, I decided on a soon-to-come, all-new 1970 Camaro. I wanted a reasonable price and a semi-usable back seat, which ruled out a Corvette. I saw a ’70 Camaro Rally Sport front clip in the engineering lab, and it looked very sexy, with a Gurney Eagle Indycar-like nose between Jaguar-type parking lights and slim mini-bumpers. So that is what I ordered. And, much more interested in curvy road handling than high performance, I opted for the upgraded F41 suspension, a four-speed manual transmission, manual steering (which I thought would be more precise and responsive than power steering), and a small block V-8 that that was lighter (for better handling) than a big-block and happily burned regular gas instead of pricey premium.

As it turned out, I was right about everything but the manual steering, which was slow and heavy, a muscle-building workout at low speed. But the small-block V-8 proved plenty strong for my taste, the floor-mounted four-speed was great, and the F41 chassis on its BFG radials exceeded my expectations. As confirmed by multiple magazine tests, that Camaro was not just one of the best-looking but also one of the best-handling cars of its day.

Then the challenge was waiting for it. What should have been a normal fall 1969 launch became an early ’70 debut thanks to some body panel issues and a UAW strike that delayed its build to January and its dealer availability to February. Very tired of that ratty old Buick, I was overjoyed when my dealer finally called to say my new Camaro RS was there. Yes, it had some (never resolved) minor paint and body flaws, but I didn’t care. It was beautiful and (except for that damned manual steering) drove as well as it looked. Whoopee!

Unlike most of the interesting cars that have come and gone through my life, I loved this one so much I hung onto it for a baker’s dozen years, even after my auto writing career advanced to the point where I was usually driving press cars. Early photos show it wearing then-fashionable wire wheel covers, but in 1972 I bought a set of Sterling mag racing wheels imported from Argentina by my friend (and Datsun 510 racing partner) Greg Sorrentino, and they greatly improved the car’s handling and sexy looks. 

As my daily driver in Michigan for three years, it dealt surprisingly well with winter conditions despite its rear drive and handling-oriented BFGs. I regularly drove it to Cleveland to visit my mom and brother and irregularly to northern Michigan to ski with my roommate. I was a lousy skier but (as a single guy) enjoyed hanging out and meeting women in the lodge . . . until I figured out that I could meet women just as easily close to home. Comically, the only time I recall getting stuck was in an icy parking lot one day when the drive tires settled into a dip with zero traction either direction. A quick push by kind bystanders had me on my way.

There was one ski trip when my younger brother met me after work on a Friday and followed me up north. The roads were dry, and I was reveling in my new Camaro’s performance and handling while my poor brother was scaring himself and his girlfriend silly trying to keep up in his 1969 Camaro convertible. He was a skilled skier but a much less experienced and confident driver, and he asked me at a gas stop to back it down lest he go sailing off into the puckerbrush at some point. I did and apologized. And he paid me back by embarrassing me on the slopes.

The Camaro then transported me west to Reno in 1973 after quitting my GM Engineering job for one as engineering editor for Competition Press, which had just moved there from California (and would later evolve into Autoweek and move to Detroit). While that huge gamble launched my writing career, my editor’s boss soon fired me for reasons unimportant to this story. But Reno was a hoot for a young, single guy because the town was full of women, the bars never closed, and that Mount Rose Highway provided exciting driving for a former (and future) racer with a fine-handling Camaro. There was also no speed limit in Nevada at the time, so my commutes to the Comp Press office north of town were typically triple digit.

While in Reno, I drove that great road up to Tahoe nearly every weekend. I enjoyed the beach (a small section of which was my first nude beach encounter), dated a sweet woman who lived there for a while, and tried skiing again when winter hit. The skiing on Tahoe’s mountain slopes was far better than in Michigan, but I was not. And I made the mistake of treating a visiting Michigan lady friend to a Camaro handling demonstration up the mountain, around the lake and back down one day. Even after slowing substantially to quell her screaming, she was too terrified to enjoy the scenery. Probably one reason she left for California the next morning.

In January 1974, the Camaro carried me back to Michigan for a job at Wards Automotive Reports. Then—because I didn’t want to sell it and couldn’t afford a wagon or truck as a second vehicle—it served as my tow rig for three seasons of Formula Ford racing, from 1975 to ’77. That single-seat racer and its small trailer were light, and its four mounted rain tires fit nicely across the Camaro’s back seat. It helped that I was beginning to earn regular access to press cars.

My only mechanical issue was self-inflicted. The engine overheated after a tough Friday at work, and I foolishly decided to continue driving it home. Not a good idea. I bought a rebuilt engine from a local shop, then got the car nicely repainted in its original rich gold color. I was then freelance writing for a variety of car magazines and convinced one editor to let me do a story on my RS Camaro that involved some drag-strip testing. Regretfully, I can’t recall which magazine and can’t find that old clip. But it did get another media role as a beautiful Roy Query photo in my 1981 Automobile Quarterly book, Camaro, from Challenger to Champion.

When I got married and my wife was transferred to expensive California in 1982, I tearfully had to sell that lovely Camaro after 13 wonderful years with it. I sure wish I had it now.