1967 Chevrolet Chevy Camaro Z28 Z/28 in Deep Water Blue Paint

This unrestored 1967 Chevrolet Camaro Z/28 has covered under 8,000 original miles and stayed with the Leszczynski family since 1998. Finished in the uncommon Deep Water Blue and carrying matching numbers, it’s the kind of survivor collectors specifically hunt for rather than stumble across. Watch the full walkaround to see why this one rarely makes it to market.

Some cars get restored to look perfect. This 1967 Camaro Z/28 never needed the effort — it simply never wore out its welcome with the family that’s owned it since 1998. Under 8,000 original miles and a color combination collectors rarely see in this trim tell part of the story, but the more interesting detail is what the current owner’s sons reveal about why a car this well-preserved almost never made it to market at all.

Why the Z/28 Package Mattered in 1967

Chevrolet introduced the Z/28 option in 1967 specifically to make the Camaro eligible for Trans-Am road racing, which required a displacement limit under 305 cubic inches. The result was a specially built 302 cubic inch small-block designed to rev higher and breathe better than Chevrolet’s other small-block offerings of the era, paired with upgraded suspension components, quicker steering, and larger brakes than a standard Camaro received. Chevrolet built the Z/28 in genuinely small numbers that first year, since most buyers didn’t yet know the package existed, which is a major reason why documented, original first-year Z/28s carry such weight with collectors today.

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What ‘All Original, Unrestored’ Actually Means Here

This particular Camaro isn’t a restoration — it’s an unrestored, all-original example, a distinction that matters enormously to serious collectors. A restored car, no matter how well executed, involves modern paint, replacement parts, and reproduction components that inevitably introduce small deviations from what left the factory. An unrestored survivor like this one retains its original paint, original interior, and original mechanical components, offering a genuine time capsule of exactly how Chevrolet built the car rather than an interpretation of it. With under 8,000 miles on the odometer, this Z/28 represents one of the more complete original survivors of the model most collectors will ever encounter in person.

The Deep Water Blue Color Question

Color combinations matter enormously to muscle car collectors, and a Z/28 finished in Deep Water Blue represents a less common pairing than the red, yellow, or white examples that tend to dominate car show fields and auction catalogs. Rarer factory colors on well-documented, matching-numbers cars often command a premium precisely because so many surviving examples were repainted into more popular shades over the decades, either during a restoration or simply to freshen up a daily driver. A car that’s retained its less common original color alongside its original mileage and unrestored status checks multiple boxes that collectors specifically hunt for simultaneously.

The Leszczynski Family’s Twenty-Six-Year Ownership

Owner Mark Leszczynski acquired this Camaro in 1998, and the fact that his sons Eric and Tim now work alongside him at Midwest Car Exchange in Alsip, Illinois, adds a layer of family history to the car’s preservation story. A car that stays with one owner for over two decades tends to avoid the kind of neglect, deferred maintenance, or ill-advised modification that shorter ownership chains often introduce, and it’s part of why long-term single-family ownership is often treated as a point in a car’s favor during appraisal, alongside more obvious factors like mileage and originality.

Why ‘My Car Story’ Built an Audience Around Dealer Visits

Lou Costabile’s “My Car Story” channel has built its following around exactly this kind of format: visiting dealerships and private sellers to walk through genuinely interesting inventory, talking directly with the people who own or sell the cars rather than relying on a script. Filmed at Midwest Car Exchange during a visit captured in early 2015, this walkaround gives viewers direct access to details that a simple listing photo never could, from the story behind the ownership to close-up looks at originality markers that matter to serious buyers evaluating a car like this from a distance.

What Matching Numbers Actually Confirms

When a seller describes a car as “matching numbers,” they’re confirming that the engine, and often the transmission and rear end, still carry the original casting and stamping codes assigned to that specific vehicle when it left the factory. For a Z/28, where the special high-revving 302 was central to the entire package’s purpose, verifying matching numbers is arguably more important than for a standard small-block Camaro, since the engine itself is the defining feature of the trim. A matching-numbers Z/28 with low original mileage represents about as complete a documentation package as the model can offer, well ahead of a car with an unverified or replaced drivetrain.

What a Car Like This Is Actually Worth Chasing

For collectors specifically pursuing first-year Z/28s, a car combining unrestored originality, under-8,000-mile documented mileage, matching numbers, and a less common factory color represents close to the ideal version of the model to own. Cars meeting even two or three of those criteria already command strong prices at auction; meeting all of them simultaneously, as this Camaro appears to, puts it in a different tier entirely. It’s the kind of car that dealers like Midwest Car Exchange don’t often get to offer, and the kind that collectors specifically watch for rather than simply stumble across on a general search.

How a Car Stays This Original for Fifty-Plus Years

Keeping a muscle car unrestored and under 8,000 miles for more than five decades requires more than luck — it requires an ownership history of careful, limited use, indoor storage, and a level of mechanical discipline that most driven daily classics never receive. Every owner along the way, including the Leszczynski family since 1998, effectively becomes a caretaker whose decisions either preserve or erode that originality, and the fact that this Z/28 has reached the market in this condition suggests a chain of ownership that consistently prioritized preservation over daily use. That kind of custodianship is ultimately what separates a numbers-matching survivor from the vast majority of Z/28s that were driven, modified, or restored long before reaching their current mileage.

Documenting a survivor car like this one on video, rather than relying solely on written descriptions or auction catalog photos, gives buyers a much closer look at exactly what ‘unrestored’ means in practice, from panel gaps to interior wear patterns that a written condition report can easily gloss over. For a car carrying this level of originality and rarity, that kind of close visual documentation becomes part of the provenance itself, giving future owners a dated record of exactly how the Camaro looked and sounded at this specific point in its ownership history.

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