Chevrolet Camaro 1967 RS Convertible

This Bolero Red 1967 Camaro convertible wears the Rally Sport package, which bought hidden headlamps and extra brightwork and precisely zero additional horsepower. Underneath sits the 327 Turbo-Fire V8, rated at 275 horsepower and quick enough to make the point without a big-block badge. Only a small fraction of RS Camaros that year were convertibles. Read on to find out why the mid-range V8 drop-top is the combination collectors quietly prefer.

Chevrolet built the Camaro in 1967 to answer the Mustang, but the Rally Sport package that dresses up this particular car was not really about performance at all. Order the RS option and Chevy gave you hidden headlamps that rotated open like something out of a spy movie, revised taillamps, and extra brightwork, pure theater bolted onto whatever engine you had already chosen. Underneath the badges, this Bolero Red convertible runs the 327-cubic-inch Turbo-Fire V8, rated at 275 horsepower. Only 10,675 of the roughly 64,842 RS-equipped Camaros built that year were convertibles. Was the extra flash worth chasing, or did the drivetrain underneath do all the real talking?

Hidden Headlights and Other Rally Sport Theater

The Rally Sport package, internally coded RPO Z22, was a pure appearance option built around rotating hidden headlamps, revised taillamps, and additional bright trim, none of which touched horsepower or handling. The headlamp doors closed flush across the grille when the lights were off, giving the car a clean, uninterrupted face that no Mustang could match, then swung aside when you needed them. It was the kind of detail that sold cars on a showroom floor and still does at a cruise night, and it is the single feature most people notice on an RS car before they notice anything mechanical.

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What the Turbo-Fire 327 Actually Delivered

The 327-cubic-inch Turbo-Fire V8 ran a single four-barrel carburetor and was rated at 275 horsepower, typically paired with a 4-speed manual like the one this convertible likely carries. That put it above the base 210-horsepower two-barrel 327 and below the SS-only 350 and the 396 big-blocks, which is exactly the sweet spot a lot of experienced owners end up in. It has enough torque to make the car feel quick without the nose-heavy front end and thirstier habits of a big-block, and it keeps the chassis balanced in a way the heavier engines never quite managed.

Late to the Fight, and Better For It

Chevrolet launched the first-generation Camaro in September 1966 on GM’s new F-body platform, shared with the Pontiac Firebird, as a direct response to the Ford Mustang’s runaway success. Ford had been selling pony cars for two and a half years by then, and Chevrolet’s answer arrived late enough that the engineering team had the luxury of studying what worked. The result was a car with a wider engine bay, a broader option sheet, and a stance that has aged noticeably better than most of what Detroit built in the same window. The 1967 model year was the only one that used the smooth, vent-window-equipped first-year body.

Why the Convertible Is the Rare Part

Chevrolet sold roughly 221,000 Camaros for 1967, with convertibles making up barely one in nine cars built and V8s outnumbering sixes by better than four to one, placing this Bolero Red drop-top in genuinely rare company. Convertible production came in around 25,000 units across all trims and engines, and attrition since has been brutal. Open cars rusted faster, were driven harder, and were far more likely to be modified beyond recognition. A first-year convertible that still wears a correct color and a period-appropriate drivetrain is a much narrower slice of the survivor population than the raw production number suggests.

The Order Sheet That Made Every Camaro Different

Part of what makes 1967 Camaros so difficult to pin down is that almost no two left the factory the same. The order sheet ran to dozens of options covering engines, transmissions, rear axle ratios, brakes, interiors, and appearance packages, and the RS and SS packages could be combined with each other or ordered separately. That flexibility is why the trim tag and cowl tag matter so much on these cars, and why an experienced buyer spends more time reading paperwork than looking at paint. A car that presents as an RS/SS may be either, both, or neither depending on what the documentation supports.

Why the Small-Block Car Gets Driven

Living with a 327 convertible is far easier than living with a 396 one. The small-block is lighter over the nose, more forgiving about cooling in traffic, cheaper to rebuild, and considerably less likely to be worth stealing parts from. Fuel consumption is merely bad rather than alarming. Parts availability for first-generation F-bodies is arguably the best of any American classic, with reproduction sheetmetal, trim, and interior components all readily available. The practical result is that a mid-range V8 car gets driven, which is the whole point of owning a convertible in the first place.

Where an RS Convertible Sits in the Market

Market-wise, the hierarchy is well established: big-block SS and Z/28 cars sit at the top, RS-only small-block cars sit meaningfully below them, and the convertible body style adds a premium across the board. That gap is exactly why a 275-horsepower RS convertible makes a compelling argument. It gives you the hidden headlights, the open roof, the correct 1967 face, and a drivetrain that is honest about what it is, without the six-figure exposure that comes with chasing a documented SS396. For a lot of buyers, that is the smarter end of the same car.

Bolero Red and the Shape It Flatters

Bolero Red is one of the colors that flatters the first-generation body more than almost anything else in the 1967 palette, particularly against a light interior and the extra brightwork the Rally Sport package brings. Combine that with a 4-speed and a 327 that pulls cleanly to its redline, and you have a car that does the two things a Camaro convertible is supposed to do: look right sitting still and sound right at three-quarter throttle. It is a reminder that Chevrolet did not need a big-block to build a genuinely desirable Camaro. The RS package gave the car its face, the 327 gave it a personality that suits the way people actually drive these now, and the convertible body gave it the one thing no coupe can offer. Nearly sixty years on, that combination still reads as one of the most complete versions of the first-generation F-body, and it does it without asking anyone to bankroll a numbers-matching big-block restoration to get there. Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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