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Mark Donohue’s 1967 Penske Camaro Could Be Your Ticket to Vintage Racing
What a loss to motorsports Mark Donohue’s death at age 38 was: He gave team owner Roger Penske his first Indianapolis 500 win, Penske’s first NASCAR win, and he drove for Penske in Formula 1. He won the 24 Hours of Daytona with Penske. And the pair teamed up to enter, and dominate, the Sports Car Club of America’s Trans Am series in 1967.
Donohue, the very first IROC champion, would bring the SCCA manufacturer’s championship to Chevrolet in 1968 and 1969, but the tide was already turning in Chevrolet’s favor at the end of the 1967 season as Donohue’s driving gelled with Penske’s car-building prowess. In the 1967 season’s final two races, Donohue claimed back-to-back wins by taking the checkered flag at the Las Vegas 350 in a nail-biter in front of a pair of Shelby Mustangs, and also at the Kent 400, which was much more decisive. The 1967 season championship went to Ford, with Mercury and Chevrolet finishing close behind.
This is the 1967 Z/28 Camaro that Donohue took to a win in those two races, and was known as “The Lightweight.” It’s headed to Mecum’s Kissimmee sale on January 18th. We don’t have a copy of the SCCA rulebook, so we can’t say whether or not Penske’s weight-trimming was outright illegal or some careful rule interpretation, but the secret was a prolonged acid bath that ate off more than 300 pounds of steel from the car’s body and structure. The SCCA was not pleased with Penske’s methods or their results and banned the car from competition after an inspection late in 1967.
Undeterred, Penske gave the car a slight makeover to compete as a 1968 Camaro at the following Trans Am season’s second race, the Twelve Hours of Sebring. Donohue took the pole and never looked back, finishing four laps ahead of another Penske Camaro and a Shelby Mustang that took second and third in class, respectively. Sebring would kick off the first of eight straight victories for Donohue and Penske on the way to a dominant 1968 Trans Am season for Chevrolet.
Setting aside its impressive Trans Am pedigree, this Camaro is also noteworthy for being the second Z/28 ever built. Sales of Z/28s would climb to more than 7000 in 1968 and more than 40,000 in 1969, although just 602 Z/28s were sold in 1967, as demand for the road-race-winning option package had yet to catch on.
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Chevrolet’s recipe for meeting the SCCA’s 5.0-liter engine capacity rule was combining the 327’s 4.0-inch bore with the 3.0-inch stroke from the 283, which was also the same as the original 265-cubic-inch Chevy small-block that debuted in 1955. The Z/28 Camaro was the only production Chevrolet to receive the 302 V-8, so despite the popularity of the small-block V-8, there are rare variants, and a 1967 Z/28 is among the most desirable. Rated at a laughably low 290 horsepower in production form, the 302 made far more in race trim and the latest in valvetrain technology can have them up around 500 horses while still looking the part.
Because this car was raced in-period, it’s eligible to compete at the Rolex Historics, which is always one of our favorite things to take in during Monterey Car Week. With any luck, we’ll see this 302-powered legend at Laguna Seca running fender-to-fender with the same cars it battled during its heyday.
As for Donohue, as a degreed mechanical engineer, he had a great deal more input into his race cars than most drivers. Donahue was in Austria, shaking down his March 751 Formula 1 car prior to the Austrian Grand Prix, when a tire failed and he crashed into the catch fence. He did not appear badly injured, but the next day, he was hospitalized with a cerebral hemorrhage. He fell into a coma and died on March 19, 1975.
The acid dip was not legal. To race they had two cars and would swap numbers.
This was the golden era of Trans Am. 67-72.
Amazing provenance. I’m not into “celebrity cars”, but this one is special for sure.
There was a story that the acid-dipping scheme was discovered when someone leaned a little too hard on the trunk lid and almost collapsed it. Read “The Unfair Advantage” for a great look into the Donahue-Penske partnership.
Great book as is the book Chevrolet Racing? It is hard to find today but spills all the Mark and Roger tricks they were using and about the factory support that was banned by Chevy.
The Test Van at the races was a classic back door effort Jim Hall is also well covered.
hyper- Thanks for the tip on “Chevrolet Racing”. Enjoy the rest of the Holiday season. I am assuming the Valentine’s Day stuff will be on the shelves this weekend.
I built an acid dipped Hemi Challenger drag car and the bodies were dipped and then foam was sprayed on the inner panel for rigidity. The body was delivered directly to us from Chrysler ready to go.
Why does it have a 68 Camaro grill? 67 with the wrong grill…
The cars back then were often updated with new trim parts.,unless a car was totaled they kept racing if there were no major body changes.
Inn the article it says he updated the car to run in 1968
It’s also wearing a 67 SS hood …
Cam70 – In short, the story as I’ve heard it. – Penske decided to sneak the ‘Lightweight’ into competition in 68. They did a car switch in race inspection in order to do this. They also swapped some 68 trim parts on to the 67 and the original vinyl roof (another bit of this cars history ) was long gone. However Donohue noted that they didn’t delete the wing windows or add the sidemarkers. Saying the inspectors simply didn’t notice. That is something I find curious. When the Camaro was found to be illegal near the end of 67, after I forget what race, it was disqualified but only from that race. Penske instead of saying ‘Okay, fair enough you caught us’ protested and threatened that he and GM by proxy would pullout from the Trans Am series. When all else fails hit em’ in their wallet. The decision was then reversed . So I wonder as to whether the SCCA missed the differences between the other rules legal Camaro and the ‘ Lightweight’ or chose to turn something of a blind eye. I mean after all you caught the grill change.
(ps) -as an interesting but somewhat morbid side note- The estate of the late Mark Donohue sued Goodyear and Penske for negligence for his death in Austria 75. Penske convinced Donohue to come out of retirement which he’d done two years earlier after the tragic events at the 500 that year. His nickname of ‘ Captain Nice’ had become ‘Dark Donohue’. Goodyear and Penske then sued Bell Helmets claiming they were responsible. The suit was finally resolved almost 10 years later with Goodyear agreeing to pay 9.6 million of the 20 sought. It is something of a landmark case being that even in the high risk sport of racing certain appropriate safety measures must still be applied.
I just finished a story on the 1968 Penske Camaro for Hemmings Muscle Machines Feb 2025. A lot of the above comments are relevant to the ‘68 Camaro (there were two that year BTW) which won 9 of the 11 races in which it ran. Loved working on this story. Tom McIntyre (owner and racer of the ‘68) is an amazing guy.
I worry that buyers will think this ‘67 is the only Penske Camaro and the one with the most provenance. Not my problem I guess?
It’s a very cool car. This is a period of racing I wish we could get again.
Chevrolet issued instructions on how to build a Camaro for racing use. It didn’t mention acid dipping but had full details on roll cage construction. It wasn’t exactly hi-tech, all the diagrams were hand sketches that looked to have been done after last call at the engineers favourite watering hole.
The cage was in fact a frame that all the suspension and drivetrain pieces were bolted to. The actual factory unibody was little more than a skin and was available as a “body in white”. Then all the bits and pieces needed were bought as required. Taking a new car out of stock and stripping it down took ages and the parts department ended up with pieces it didn’t want and would never be sold. That said street cars with the required safety equipment were used by “sportsman racers”. Requirements were not like today, more along the lines of today’s track day cars. Dealership conversions driven to the track and back. Canada had racing series that these cars ran in. The most important piece of the car was the rear view mirror.
Gary is right about the racing being much more interesting back then. In a few years down the back straight, cars would be purchased from Race Car Manufacturers such as Porsche and numerous American companies.
This ended homologation cars built by car companies in numbers to satisfy the FIA or Bill France. The Superbird and Charger Daytona, prime examples of vehicles built in numbers to keep the cars “legal”. The most notorious being the Ferrari GTO which never hit the target by 74%. Enzo still laughs!
I was a complete Mark Donohue gearhead. I was at Sebring when he won. I followed him in every race and will never forget when he died.
1969 saw 20302 Z28 Camaros, if my memory serves me correctly!
If memory serves me correctly, which is not as fail safe as it once was, Mark specifically requested red door panels in his cars.
Yes
Thanks for sharing! Actually, both cars #15 and 16 are for sale at Mecum and their stories are intertwined if you read the entire lot descriptions carefully. Both cars are important but for very different reasons but they were both important in Trans Am and Chevrolet racing history.
Hopefully, Hagerty will do a follow up article about both cars as they are actually like a set of “bookends” where as a pair make a more interesting and compelling story in my opinion.
There were six Sunoco Camaros built, per Mark’s book. Five still exist. The first two are the ones selling at Mecum on January 18. The first car ran all but two of the 1967 Trans Ams. It was the first Camaro to win and that happened at Marlboro in May of 1967 (Co driven by Mark and Craig Fisher). The second car had acid dipped removable panels and won the last two races in 1967, lapping the field at Kent. Roger and Mark were told not to bring that car back (we are weighing cars next year) Chevy was upset when the single new 1968 car lost hours in the pits replacing cylinder heads at Daytona and told Roger to have two cars at Sebring (like the Mustangs). Still 250 or so pounds underweight, they got Sunoco #2 back, partnering with Terry Godsall. Roger and Mark took the 3000 lb. (fully dipped with the weight added back to balance) new 1968 car to technical inspection twice. Once with each number, 15 and 16. Laughing about how easy that was they switched again in their rented hangar half way through qualifying and the lightweight qualified for both. It not only won the Trans AM, it finished third overall in the Sebring 12 hour behind two Porsche prototypes. An unheard of feat. So if you have seen Sunoco Camaro #15 at SVRA vintage races for the last 30 years. This is that car. on its fourth restoration. It has also been at the Rolex Reunion/ Monterey Historics many times. You could only have see the first Sunoco Camaro if you were at the Amelia Island Concours in 2020 or at MCACN last November. It spent 1969-1979 racing in Austria and 1980-2016 all apart in the garages of an Austrian Count. After a 4 year Penske perfect restoration it was shown with the other 4 Sunoco Camaros as Amelia Island celebrated Cars of Roger Penske. Thank you Bill Warner and Roger for making it happen! It won the Amelia award. The second car had previously been a class winner at the Amelia.
Unfair advantage is a great read, it details a lot of the exploits of team, Penske and Donahue. The 917 is particularly interesting. The set up was a nightmare which they resolved by taking all the aero bits off of it, setting it up and then adding back the wings, etc. when they talk in the book, they had to meet minimum weight for 68 season; they added back 300 pounds put it where they wanted it to perfectly balance the car with the driver in place. by the way Traco was building the 302. They’re getting about 450 hp. ISKY cam I believe. nobody else seemed to be able to duplicate this and win races & stayed together. Mark Donohue advised a specific warm-up and break in protocol and he was very careful not to over rev engines. his demise is a shame within 10 years We had CT scans good enough to diagnose his injury…