Who Still Has Their First Muscle Car? 67 Camaro Bought When He Was 17

One of our readers walked into a Chevrolet showroom in 1967 while still in high school, paid cash, and drove home in a brand-new Camaro that never left his ownership. Fifty years later the car is still immaculate, wearing dual white racing stripes and a story most muscle car fans only dream about. Read on to find out what it actually takes to keep a first car for half a century.

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Most people who bought a new car in high school don’t still have it fifty years later. Most people who bought a new car in high school don’t have it five years later. But one of our readers walked into a showroom in 1967, paid cash as a teenager, drove a brand-new Camaro straight home, and never let it leave. Half a century on, the car is still immaculate enough that photos are the only proof he felt like offering. What does it actually take to keep a car for fifty years without it falling apart?

What the Photos Actually Show

The car in these shots is finished in black with a pair of wide white stripes running over the hood, roof, and trunk, a stripe treatment that first-generation Camaro buyers could get either as part of a factory performance package or added on by a dealer, since striping kits were common upgrades regardless of what was actually under the hood. The car wears exposed round dual headlights rather than the hidden headlight treatment reserved for RS-equipped cars, and it currently rides on a set of aftermarket slotted wheels rather than the factory steel wheels the car would have left the showroom wearing. The paint and bodywork both look tight and straight in every angle, consistent with an owner who genuinely never let the car sit outside or go without maintenance.

Bought New, Never Let Go

According to the owner, he walked into a Chevrolet showroom in 1967 while still in high school, paid for the Camaro in cash, and drove it home the same day. Fifty years later, the car still resides with him, a level of single-ownership continuity that’s exceptionally rare for any muscle car from this era, let alone one that’s stayed in daily reach of its original buyer for half a century rather than getting sold off during college, marriage, or a dozen other life events that typically end up separating young owners from their first cars.

A Car Built to Answer the Mustang

Chevrolet didn’t build the Camaro in a vacuum. Ford’s Mustang had launched in 1964 to overwhelming sales success, catching General Motors flat-footed without a genuine competitor in the compact sporty car segment. The Camaro arrived for the 1967 model year specifically to close that gap, giving Chevrolet dealers something to point to when Mustang-shopping customers walked through the door. That competitive urgency shaped almost every decision Chevrolet made on the car, from how quickly it reached production to how aggressively the option sheet was stacked with performance packages like the RS, SS, and Z/28.

A Platform Shared With an Unlikely Sibling

Underneath the sheet metal, the 1967 Camaro used a subframe and semi-unibody design that Chevrolet would carry over to the 1968 Chevy II Nova, an unglamorous engineering detail that doesn’t get much attention next to the Camaro’s styling but explains a lot about how quickly and cost-effectively Chevrolet was able to bring the car to market to compete with Ford’s Mustang. Buyers in 1967 could choose from close to 80 factory options and another 40 dealer-installed options, including three headline packages: the RS appearance package, the SS performance package, and the Z/28 option built specifically with racing in mind.

What the SS Package Actually Added

Camaros ordered with the SS package came standard with a 350-cubic-inch V8, with Chevrolet’s L35 and L78 396-cubic-inch big-blocks available as options for buyers who wanted considerably more power. Visually, the SS added non-functional air inlets on the hood, unique striping, and SS badging on the grille, front fenders, gas cap, and horn button. Buyers could combine the SS with the RS appearance package to create an RS/SS, and in 1967 one such car, a 396-powered RS/SS convertible, paced the Indianapolis 500, a genuine moment of mainstream visibility for the still-new Camaro nameplate.

The Option Most Buyers Never Knew Existed

The Z/28 option code, introduced in December 1966 for the 1967 model year, was the brainchild of Chevrolet engineer Vince Piggins, who wanted to offer a virtually race-ready Camaro that any dealer could order. Chevrolet never advertised it in sales literature, so most buyers had no idea the option existed at all. The Z/28 required power front disc brakes and a close-ratio Muncie four-speed manual transmission, paired with a 302-cubic-inch small-block V8 purpose-built to satisfy Trans Am racing rules limiting engines to under 305 cubic inches, backed by an aluminum intake manifold and a four-barrel Holley carburetor.

An Engine Rated Well Below What It Actually Made

Chevrolet officially advertised the Z/28’s 302 at 290 horsepower at 5,300 rpm, but the engine’s actual peak output ran considerably higher, closer to 360 horsepower with the single four-barrel carburetor and as much as 400 horsepower with an optional dual four-barrel setup, both figures achieved between 6,800 and 7,000 rpm. Chevrolet kept the advertised rating deliberately under one horsepower per cubic inch for insurance and racing classification reasons, a common trick among performance car makers of the era who didn’t want their engines drawing unwanted attention from insurers or racing sanctioning bodies.

A Genuinely Rare Option in Its First Year

Only 602 Z/28s were sold in the 1967 model year, alongside roughly 100 Indianapolis 500 pace car replicas built off the same performance package. Whether or not this particular reader’s car carries the Z/28 option specifically, that rarity underscores just how uncommon any well-preserved, single-owner 1967 Camaro has become, regardless of which performance package it left the factory wearing. A car that’s spent fifty years with the same owner, still driven and still cared for, is its own kind of rare option that no factory build sheet ever listed. Documentation and provenance matter enormously in the collector car world, and few things establish provenance more convincingly than an owner who can simply say, without any paperwork required, “I bought it new, and it’s never left.” That’s a story no amount of restoration money can buy back once it’s gone. It’s the kind of history that turns a well-kept used car into a genuine piece of one family’s history, and it’s exactly the sort of story we love hearing from fellow Muscle Car Fans.

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