1967 Chevrolet Chevy Camaro RS SS L78 Convertible in Marina Blue

George and Margaret Oleskiewicz’s 1967 Camaro RS SS convertible pairs a rare L78 396/375hp big block with a fully documented options list, right down to the luggage rack and correct disc brakes. George has owned the car since 1995, and Margaret has her own reason for still showing up to the events. Watch to hear why judges call this Marina Blue convertible the Holy Grail of first-generation Camaros.

Every option box checked, every date code matching, and a paint color that stops foot traffic cold in its tracks — George and Margaret Oleskiewicz didn’t just restore a 1967 Camaro, they built a reference document on wheels. This RS SS convertible carries an engine option so rare that even seasoned Camaro judges stop what they’re doing to double-check the numbers themselves. Margaret has her own reason for coming to the shows that has nothing to do with horsepower at all, and it’s the kind of detail that makes this restoration feel less like a trophy and more like a marriage.

L78: The Option Most Camaros Never Got

The L78 option put a 396-cubic-inch big block rated at 375 horsepower into a car most buyers ordered with a far more modest small block under the hood. In a Camaro, and especially in a convertible body style, the L78 was a rare enough factory choice that finding one today with its original, matching engine still bolted in place is a genuine event for first-generation Camaro collectors who track these things closely across the hobby.

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RS and SS, Stacked Together

This car doesn’t carry just one performance package, it stacks two on top of each other. The Rally Sport option added hideaway headlights and the distinctive red-accented taillight panel that RS Camaros are known for at a glance, while the Super Sport package brought the performance hardware, exterior badging, and the domed hood scoop. Combining RS and SS on a single 1967 Camaro required checking multiple separate option boxes that most buyers at the time skipped entirely to save money.

Documentation Down to the Window Sticker

What sets this restoration apart isn’t just the rare engine choice, it’s the completeness of the documentation standing behind it. Every option on the car traces back directly to the original window sticker: tilt steering, an AM/FM radio, factory headrests, a rear luggage rack, and factory disc brakes, all independently verified rather than simply assumed or claimed by a previous seller. That level of paperwork is unusual even among heavily restored, well-known Camaros on the show circuit.

Twenty-Plus Years With One Family

George has owned this Camaro since 1995, which means the restoration itself and everything that’s followed it has played out under one owner’s direct care for close to three decades now. That kind of continuity matters a great deal in the collector world, where a car’s actual condition often depends far less on the quality of the original build than on who’s been personally responsible for it in the years since.

Marina Blue and the World of Wheels Crowd

The car appeared at the World of Wheels show in Rosemont, Illinois, on March 11, 2015, wearing its Marina Blue paint under show lighting bright enough that it leaves nowhere for even a minor flaw to hide from a trained eye. Shows like this one draw exactly the kind of detail-obsessed crowd that a fully documented L78 convertible is built specifically to impress, more so than a casual weekend cruise-in ever could.

Why Judges Call This the Holy Grail

One commenter, a fellow Camaro restorer with real hands-on experience, called this the most thoroughly documented example they’d personally ever seen and said flatly that it belongs at the top of the chart among first-generation Camaros anywhere. For a hobby where “Holy Grail” gets used loosely and often, the praise here comes from someone who clearly knows exactly what they’re comparing it against in real terms.

RS/SS or SS/RS? A Debate Among Enthusiasts

Even the car’s own name draws quiet debate in the comments section: is it correctly called an “RS/SS” or an “SS/RS,” given that it’s technically a Super Sport ordered with Rally Sport options rather than the reverse configuration? It’s a small, almost pedantic argument on its face, but one that shows just how seriously enthusiasts take even the fine terminology surrounding a car this well documented.

What Keeps Margaret Coming Back

The video closes with Margaret explaining, in her own words, what actually brings her back to the car shows year after year, and it isn’t the L78’s horsepower rating or the matching date codes stamped on the block. That human detail, tucked at the very end of an otherwise spec-heavy walkaround, is what turns this from a straightforward car feature into a story about a couple and the machine they’ve kept together for thirty years and counting.

1967: The Camaro’s First Year

1967 wasn’t just any model year for the Camaro, it was the very first one. Chevrolet rushed the car to market specifically to compete with Ford’s Mustang, which had already been selling strongly for close to three years by that point. That first-year status adds its own layer of significance to any well-documented 1967 example, since the earliest Camaros carry a historical weight later model years simply can’t claim, regardless of how many performance options are checked on the build sheet.

What a Convertible Adds to the L78 Story

Big block Camaros are uncommon enough on their own, but big block convertibles push that rarity further still. Ragtop bodies were structurally weaker than hardtops and required extra reinforcement, which made big block installations a less common factory pairing across the board. A documented L78 convertible like this one sits at the intersection of two separate rarity factors at once, body style and engine option, rather than just one.

A Convertible Top That Complicates Everything

Convertible-specific engineering adds real complications a hardtop restoration never has to solve: top mechanism timing, weatherstripping that has to seal correctly on a flexing body, and structural reinforcement that has to be both effective and invisible under factory-correct trim. Getting all of that right, on top of an L78 drivetrain and complete documentation, is part of why a build like this one represents years of sustained effort rather than a single focused restoration project.

A Show Car That Still Gets Driven

Not every heavily documented restoration ends up trailered everywhere it goes. Cars maintained this closely by one owner for decades often still see real road time between shows, and that combination, concours-level correctness paired with an owner willing to actually drive it, is part of what separates a genuinely lived-in restoration from one built purely to sit under lights.

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