Review/Breakdown: 1967 Camaro SS396 375 HP Convertible

This Granada Gold 1967 Camaro SS396 convertible, built for V8TV’s 50th-anniversary Camaro coverage, marks the exact mid-year moment Chevrolet finally let the 396 big block into the Camaro — a full two years after it debuted in the Impala SS. Host Kevin Oeste and The Brothers Collection dig into why the engine was late, and viewers’ own decades-old ownership stories fill in the rest.

Chevrolet didn’t build a big-block option into the Camaro on day one — for the car’s entire debut year, the 396 simply wasn’t available under that hood at any price. This 1967 Camaro SS396, finished in Granada Gold for the fiftieth anniversary retrospective from V8TV’s Muscle Car of the Week series, represents the moment that changed, and the story behind why Chevy waited is stranger than most Camaro fans realize even today. Host Kevin Oeste walks through a car from The Brothers Collection that isn’t just another restored SS — it’s a snapshot of the exact model year the big-block Camaro war actually began in earnest. Fifty years on, that gap in availability is exactly the kind of production detail that separates a merely nice restoration from one that actually teaches its viewers something new about a car they thought they already understood.

A 375-Horsepower Statement, Mid-Year

This particular car carries the 396-cubic-inch big block in its 375-horsepower L78 tune, the top performance option Chevrolet offered once the engine finally became available partway through the 1967 model year rather than at launch. That timing matters more than it first appears: buyers who wanted a big-block Camaro at introduction simply couldn’t get one, making any first-year 396 car — convertible or hardtop — a genuine mid-year addition rather than a day-one option ordered off the original brochure. L78-code cars are prized specifically for that solid-lifter, high-compression combination, which pushed real power well beyond what the smaller-displacement small blocks in the early Camaro lineup could ever hope to match.

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Why the 396 Was Late to the Camaro

One detail viewers flagged in the comments fills in the real history behind that delay. Chevrolet introduced the 396 first on the 1965 Impala SS, then the 1965½ Corvette, followed by the 1966 Chevelle, before it finally reached the Camaro for 1967½. Some enthusiasts trace part of that delay to Ford’s decision to offer the 390-cubic-inch FE big block in the Mustang, a competitive pressure that reportedly pushed GM to loosen internal restrictions on big-block Camaro production faster than originally planned for the platform. That staggered rollout across four different Chevrolet nameplates over roughly two and a half years is a detail most casual fans never learn, since modern retrospectives tend to treat the 396 Camaro as though it existed from the very start of production.

Granada Gold and a Deceptively Subtle Stance

Finished in Granada Gold with matching gold-toned wheels, this SS396 wears one of the more understated color combinations Chevy offered for 1967 — a look one commenter specifically called a “sleeper” combination, all business with none of the flash a stripe-heavy big-block Camaro usually announces itself with from across a parking lot. For a convertible carrying this much engine underneath a subdued exterior, that quiet stance is a huge part of the appeal decades later. Gold-on-gold combinations were never the top seller on the order sheet, which is part of why surviving examples in this specific color pairing draw extra attention whenever one turns up at a show or, in this case, on camera.

A Collection Built Around Anniversary Storytelling

The Brothers Collection supplied this particular car for V8TV’s 50th-anniversary Camaro coverage, and the choice says something about what the collection genuinely values: not just a flashy first-year Camaro that everyone already recognizes on sight, but one that marks the exact moment the model gained the engine option that would go on to define its muscle car reputation for the next several years of production. Kevin Oeste and the V8TV production team have spent years building exactly this kind of episode, pairing a well-known collection with the lesser-known production history behind each individual car they choose to feature.

The Convertible Factor

Big-block convertibles carried a real cost and complexity premium over hardtops in 1967, and that gap only widened as insurance rates on high-performance drop-tops climbed through the following model years. A documented, correctly optioned SS396 convertible from the Camaro’s actual introduction year for big-block availability checks boxes that plenty of restored hardtops simply can’t match, no matter how well they’ve been kept up over the decades since. Rising fuel costs and shifting insurance categories through the early 1970s only accelerated that decline further, making any surviving big-block convertible from this specific window a genuinely uncommon find on today’s collector market. Documentation tracing a car back to that exact window of production, rather than a later model year with more common parts availability, is exactly the kind of detail serious buyers pay a real premium to verify.

Viewers Who Lived the Same Story

More than one commenter used this video to revisit their own history with the platform in the replies. One recalled buying a baby blue 1967 SS Camaro with the 396/375 combination while serving in the early 1970s, later trading up to a ’65 Corvette with an even bigger engine under the hood. Another remembered a 1968 SS Camaro with the 396/350 combination, noting its factory red-line wide-oval tires wore out within a couple of weeks of ownership. Those firsthand accounts, stacked underneath a fifty-plus-year-old car, are exactly the kind of context a dealership listing never provides on its own. Comments like these turn a simple walkaround video into something closer to a shared archive of first-hand Camaro ownership stretching back over half a century.

Why This Episode Closes the Chapter

Calling this car a fitting “production ender” for the anniversary series, as one viewer put it in the comments, tracks with what the car actually represents: not the first Camaro built, but the first one built the way enthusiasts would come to expect a proper SS396 to look and run, once Chevrolet finally let the big block loose in the pony car it belonged in all along. That’s a fitting note to end an anniversary series on: not the loudest car in the collection, but the one that quietly explains how the whole big-block Camaro legend actually got started in the first place, six months later than most fans assume.

Watch the full video and tell us what you think — comments are open below.

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