Chevrolet Camaro 1968 ZZ4

This 1968 Camaro is running an engine that didn’t exist when it left the factory — a ZZ4 crate small block bolted beneath dripping-wet custom paint and polished Torque Thrust wheels. Here’s why builders keep skipping the era-correct big block for a modern crate motor, what separates a resto-mod from a numbers-matching original, and why the first-generation Camaro remains the platform builders reach for most.

This 1968 Camaro is carrying an engine that didn’t exist when the car rolled off the assembly line, and that contradiction is exactly what makes it interesting. Chevrolet built 235,147 Camaros for the 1968 model year, the second year of production and the one where the brand-new pony car ironed out its early kinks with a mid-cycle refresh. Under this particular coupe’s dripping-wet custom paint sits a ZZ4 crate engine, a small-block Chevrolet wouldn’t introduce until decades after this body style left showrooms, bolted up and turning a set of polished Torque Thrust wheels. So why would a builder skip the era-correct big block everyone expects and reach for a modern crate motor instead? Honestly, once you look at what the ZZ4 delivers, it’s hard to blame them.

1968: The Year the Camaro Grew Up

The second-year Camaro kept its 106-inch wheelbase and overall shape but brought real refinements: federally mandated side marker lights, a smoother-shifting Astro Ventilation system that eliminated front vent windows, and engine choices that ranged from an inline-six up through a 396-cubic-inch big block rated as high as 350 horsepower in SS trim. Original 1968 buyers paid somewhere between roughly $2,600 and $3,797 depending on options, a wide spread that reflects just how many different Camaros, from economy six-cylinder coupes to genuine street performers, rolled off the same line that year.

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Why Builders Reach for a ZZ4

The ZZ4 is a 350-cubic-inch small block GM Performance sold as a turn-key crate engine from the mid-1990s into the 2010s, built around aluminum cylinder heads and a hydraulic roller camshaft that most factory 1968 engines never had. Factory-rated at 355 horsepower and 405 lb-ft of torque, it’s a popular swap specifically because it delivers modern reliability and easy power in a package that bolts into a first-generation Camaro engine bay without much drama, and with a cam or exhaust upgrade, output creeping toward the 400-horsepower range this car is said to make isn’t unusual at all, proof that sometimes the smart build beats the purist one.

Born to Answer the Mustang

The first-generation Camaro didn’t emerge from a clean sheet of paper; it emerged from a scramble. Ford’s Mustang had caught General Motors flat-footed in 1964, and Chevrolet spent the next two-plus years engineering a direct response, finally launching the Camaro for the 1967 model year. It rode on GM’s new F-body platform, a rear-drive architecture Chevrolet shared with the Pontiac Firebird, which arrived just months later wearing different sheet metal over largely the same bones. Where the Mustang had a head start and a cultural head of steam, the Camaro countered with a broader engine range and sharper handling ambitions. That competitive urgency shaped everything about the car, and it’s part of why examples like this 1968 coupe still draw a crowd more than half a century later.

RS, SS, or Both: Decoding the Badges

First-generation Camaro buyers faced an alphabet soup of options, and two letters mattered most. The RS, or Rally Sport, was an appearance package: hidden headlights behind a vacuum-operated cover, revised taillights, and RS badging, none of which touched what was under the hood. The SS, or Super Sport, was the opposite, a performance package built around specific V8 engines, functional hood treatments, and SS-specific trim, with no promise of hidden headlights or the RS’s cosmetic flourishes. Crucially, Chevrolet let buyers order both on the same car, producing the RS/SS combination that stacked the Rally Sport’s hidden-headlight face onto a genuinely quick machine. That flexibility is part of the reason first-gen Camaros support such a wide range of builds today, from subtle cruisers to dedicated resto-mods.

The Wheel That Became Shorthand for Muscle

Those polished five-spokes on this Camaro aren’t just wheels, they’re a design with its own résumé. American Racing introduced the Torque Thrust in the early 1960s, and its five-spoke, deep-dish profile quickly became one of the most recognized aftermarket wheel designs in American automotive history. It was engineered as much for function as looks, with a spoke pattern that improved brake cooling and lighter unsprung weight than the steel wheels most cars left the factory wearing. Drag racers and street builders adopted it fast, and by the muscle car era it had become something close to a default choice for anyone modifying a Chevrolet, Pontiac, or Ford. Decades on, a polished Torque Thrust set still signals “serious build” faster than almost any other single component choice.

What ‘Dripping Wet’ Really Means

In resto-mod circles, describing a paint job as dripping wet isn’t just a compliment, it’s shorthand for a specific and expensive process. Achieving that mirror-deep, almost liquid gloss typically means stripping a car to bare metal, addressing every ding and wave in the sheet metal, and laying down multiple color coats followed by several coats of clear, each wet-sanded and buffed between applications. It’s the opposite of a quick refinish; panel gaps get attention, door jambs and trunk interiors often get painted to the same standard as the exterior, and the labor alone can run into hundreds of hours. That level of finish work is usually reserved for cars where the owner intends the paint to be a centerpiece rather than a backdrop, which tracks with a build that also invests in a serious crate engine and premium wheels.

From ZZ4 to LS: The Crate Engine Arms Race

The ZZ4 wasn’t GM Performance’s endpoint, it was an early milestone in a lineup that kept evolving. Through the 1990s and 2000s, GM Performance built out a broader family of small-block crate engines before the LS-series V8s, introduced in production Corvettes and trucks starting in the late 1990s, gradually took over as the go-to swap for builders chasing more power in a smaller, lighter package. LS engines brought aluminum-block options, more modern fuel injection, and a reputation for tolerating serious boost or nitrous with minimal drama, which pulled a lot of builders away from traditional small-blocks like the ZZ4. Even so, the ZZ4 retained a loyal following among people who wanted classic small-block character, a traditional distributor-and-carburetor or simple EFI setup, and a proven, well-documented engine rather than the LS platform’s steeper complexity.

Resto-Mod or Numbers-Matching: Where Collectors Are Putting Their Money

The collector market for first-generation Camaros has split into two distinct lanes that don’t compete so much as serve different buyers. Numbers-matching original big-block cars, especially documented SS or Z/28 examples with their factory-correct engines and drivetrains, command a premium tied directly to originality and provenance; every deviation from as-built spec chips away at that value. Resto-mods play by different rules entirely. Buyers in that lane are paying for execution, drivability, and craftsmanship rather than factory correctness, and a well-built example with a modern crate engine, upgraded brakes, and show-quality paint can command real money precisely because it’s not trying to be original. The resto-mod market has grown substantially as more collectors want cars they can actually drive hard on a regular basis without worrying about preserving irreplaceable factory components.

Behind the Wheel: Old Iron Versus New Aluminum

Swap a ZZ4 into a 1968 Camaro and the driving experience changes in ways a spec sheet doesn’t fully capture. The factory 396 big block these cars could be ordered with is a heavy iron-block engine that sits its mass well forward, giving the nose a planted but nose-heavy feel and demanding regular attention to timing, carburetion, and cooling to stay happy. A ZZ4, with its aluminum cylinder heads and modern hydraulic roller cam, is comparatively light, easier to keep tuned, and far more tolerant of stop-and-go traffic without the fouled plugs or overheating that period-correct big blocks are known for. The result is a car that turns in more eagerly, idles smoother at a stoplight, and generally asks a lot less of its owner mechanically, even if it trades away some of the big block’s raw, torque-heavy period character.

Why This Body Style Keeps Winning the Resto-Mod Game

Fifty-plus years after its debut, the first-generation Camaro remains one of the most heavily resto-modded platforms in the entire hobby, and the reasons stack up cleanly. The aftermarket support is enormous, with reproduction sheet metal, chassis components, and engine mounts covering nearly every part of the car, which makes builds like this one dramatically more achievable than they’d be on a rarer platform. The body’s proportions, long hood, short deck, aggressive stance, still read as instantly right to modern eyes, aging far better than some of its contemporaries. Add in a huge population of surviving cars from a production run north of 235,000 units in 1968 alone, and builders have no shortage of solid starting points to work with. A dripping-wet Camaro riding on Torque Thrusts and a ZZ4 isn’t an outlier, it’s the platform doing exactly what it’s always done best.

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