1969 Camaro Parts - How Goerge Lyons Wrangled and Restored a Super-Rare 1969 Camaro Pace Car - His Story - Steves Camaro Parts San Bruno

 How Goerge Lyons Wrangled and Restored a Super-Rare 1969 Camaro Pace Car - His Story

Going back as far as 1975 I had great success advertising in larger city newspapers, in the cities surrounding me, including Pittsburgh, PA, Cleveland, OH, and Buffalo, NY. I would advertise in the wanted section for particular types of cars, different collectible cars. And, of course, most of the success I had with this was well before the growth of the Internet. Back in 2001, I'd advertised in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. I was looking for early Camaros, and I listed them by model: Z-28s, Super Sports, good cars or good restoration projects.

One day, I got a call from a gentleman that described a 69 Indy Pace Car Camaro Convertible, and I was immediately interested by two things he told me: It was a 396 big-block car, and it came out of Arizona. He'd purchased the car and brought it back with him to Cleveland, though he'd never really done much with it. I told him, of course, I was very interested, and made the trip to Ohio the following day. I knew it was a good bet that I'd probably see a good, solid, rust-free car, being that it was coming out of Arizona.

Well, when I first saw the car I was thrilled with the condition, as far as being a great core car for a restoration. As I expected, there was no rust, deterioration, modifications, or damage. But, overall the car was in somewhat tired condition: very poor amateur repaint, tired interior and convertible top, and fairly tired mechanicals— but the car was 100% complete. And it just got better the more I looked… Not only was it a 396; but it was a 375hp car, the high-performance 396 paired to a 4-speed. So, then I checked the engine numbers only to find out that this was a "Code JJ" motor, which is not only a 375 but also the ultra-rare L89 Aluminum head car.

I was absolutely astounded to discover that. I'd only ever seen one other one in my life.

The word is that Chevrolet built a total of ten, which may have included the three that were used at the speedway as pace cars and backup cars. But, we do know the number is between seven and ten as the total build number of these L89 Pace Cars.

I can tell you once I saw the car and inspected it; I was determined to own it. Once I found out what it was, I mean, there was no question I was going to own this thing.

Well, from there, I brought the car back to Erie, PA, and immediately began to sort out what I'd bought. I immediately decided that the car warranted a complete, ground-up rotisserie restoration with the highest degree of skill and new old stock quality parts. It was certainly a car that deserved to have the money spent on it, as it was such a big opportunity with it being an L89, 4-speed pace car.

In addition to the documentation I received with the car, I tracked the car back to the original selling dealer, Lamb Chevrolet in Prescott, Arizona, who are still in business today. I went so far as to visit that dealership on a trip out west, and spoke to the original selling dealer's son, who actually remembered the car. He recalled they got two pace cars, one automatic, and then this monster. I also discovered that it'd changed hands once or twice in the Prescott area.

It was a wonderful car underneath the paint, and, actually, as restorations go, this was fairly easy. Though, it did take about a year to complete. We really worked hard to restore the car to a correct assembly line level of finish and detail. We weren't trying to "over-restore" it, just trying to get the fine details right. We wanted to achieve the same paint quality, overspray, plating and assembly techniques that would have been used by the Camaro plant, when the car was built new.

We tried to build it to be an exact representation of what this car looked like in 1969. We really tried to use as many new old stock, factory GM parts as possible with this restoration. What reproduction items that are on the car, were things that were simply not available new.

I spent a good deal of time sourcing some of the best parts I could find to do the restoration. And, ultimately, I believe I achieved what I sought out to do with this car. It's an all-correct, original drivetrain car, and the mechanicals are completely rebuilt to stock specs. And it performs very strong. I've driven the car very little since it's been finished, but it runs and drives just like a brand new car. In the end, I couldn't have been happier wit

source: https://theblock.com/news/how-george-lyons-wrangled-and-restored-super-rare-69-camaro-pace-car
 

Submitted by theBLOCK

http://www.stevescamaroparts.com


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