The 1970½ Camaro Z/28’s Small-Block Almost Beat Chevy’s Own Big Block — Here’s How a 360-HP LT-1 Did It

A rare, unrestored 1970½ Chevrolet Camaro Z/28 with just 22,000 original miles is the star of this deep dive into Chevy’s most track-capable small-block muscle car. Its 360-horsepower LT-1 nearly matched the division’s own big-block 396 — and this walkaround shows exactly how Chevrolet pulled it off, inside and out.

Chevrolet built exactly one small-block engine strong enough to make its own big-block nervous, and it lived under the hood of the 1970½ Camaro Z/28. This particular car — a largely unrestored example wearing just over 22,000 original miles — is the kind of survivor collectors dream about finding in a barn but almost never do. Finished in factory Hugger Orange with black stripes and its original black vinyl top, it looks every bit as sharp today as it did rolling off the showroom floor more than fifty years ago. Under that long, low hood sits the LT-1: an 11:1-compression, solid-lifter small-block fed by a 780-CFM Holley four-barrel that Chevrolet rated at 360 horsepower, just a handful shy of the division’s own 396 big block. A period Camaro ad claimed the Z/28 “separated the men from the toys” — and once you understand what Chevy packed into this car, it’s easy to see they weren’t just talking marketing copy.

This walkaround comes from the Muscle Car Of The Week channel, part of an ongoing series built around The Brothers Collection’s stash of unrestored and lightly preserved muscle cars. Rather than a staged studio reveal, the video treats the car like what it is: a genuine survivor worth documenting in detail, inside and out, before it changes hands again. The host walks through the exterior first — the redesigned 1970½ body, the low-sloping rear glass with no rear quarter windows, the short rear spoiler, and the hood stripes that point straight into the open-mouth grille — before popping the hood to get into what actually makes a Z/28 a Z/28.

Inside, the video lingers on details that are easy to overlook in photos alone: the cockpit-style dash with its simulated burlwood trim, the high-backed bucket seats with their checkered pattern, the 150-mph speedo and 8,000-rpm tach mounted front and center, and the chrome-balled Hurst shifter rising out of the console. It’s a reminder that the Z/28 package wasn’t just an engine and a decal — Chevrolet dressed the whole car to match the performance underneath, right down to a dash built for someone who actually intended to use every one of those 8,000 rpm.

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Why the 1970½ Z/28 Rewrote the Rules

The Z/28 name had only existed for three model years by the time this car was built, but it already carried serious weight. Chevrolet introduced the package in 1967 specifically to homologate the Camaro for SCCA Trans-Am racing, which meant early Z/28s were raw, high-revving, four-speed-only machines built around a 302-cubic-inch small-block that liked to spin past 7,000 rpm. Ford’s Boss 302 Mustang was built to answer that exact car, and the Trans-Am rivalry between the two pushed both companies to keep sharpening their homologation specials year after year. The 1970½ redesign — delayed by mid-year, hence the odd naming convention — brought a longer, lower body and a genuinely new car underneath the sheet metal, and the automotive press treated it kindly from day one.

The engine changed too. Chevrolet swapped the screaming 302 for the LT-1, a 350-cubic-inch small-block that traded a bit of the old car’s redline for real-world torque without giving up the solid-lifter cam, 11:1 compression, aluminum intake, and four-bolt main block that made the earlier engine a legitimate race motor. The result was 360 horsepower and 380 lb-ft of torque — enough that Chevrolet, for the first time in Z/28 history, felt comfortable offering a Turbo 400 automatic alongside the standard Hurst-shifted four-speed. Underneath, the Z/28’s Trans-Am racing pedigree stuck around in the form of a 1-inch front sway bar, stiffer front coil springs, heavy-duty rear leaf springs, quick-ratio power steering, and Positraction turning 4.11 gears.

What Makes This Particular Car Worth a Second Look

Most 1970½ Z/28s that survive today have been restored, modified, or driven hard enough that finding one this original is genuinely rare. This car’s 22,000-mile odometer reading and its unrestored Hugger Orange paint put it in a different category than the majority of Z/28s that show up at auctions and cruise nights — cars that have typically been repainted, reupholstered, or built up with modern drivetrain swaps somewhere along the way. It also isn’t dressed up as something it’s not: no RS package, no split bumper, no nose extension. It’s a straightforward, honestly-optioned Z/28, and that honesty is exactly what makes it valuable to the kind of collector The Brothers Collection caters to.

Buyers hunting for their own 1970½ Z/28 today should treat matching numbers, an intact LT-1 block, and factory documentation as non-negotiable — the model’s popularity means clones and re-created cars are common, and the difference between a real Z/28 and a convincing tribute car can be a six-figure swing in value. A close look at the cowl tag, the trim tag, and the engine casting numbers is the only way to know for sure what’s actually sitting in front of you, whether it’s this orange survivor or the next one to surface at auction.

The 1970½ Z/28 only ran for a handful of model years before emissions regulations and rising insurance rates gutted the muscle car market, which is part of why unmolested, low-mile examples like this one carry such a premium today. It represents the last version of the first-generation Z/28 formula — small-block power, Trans-Am-bred handling, and a genuinely track-capable chassis — before Chevrolet’s performance cars entered the leaner years of the mid-1970s. That combination of scarcity and pedigree is exactly why cars like this keep climbing in value at every major muscle car auction.

Watch the full video above for the complete walkaround of this 1970½ Camaro Z/28, and let us know your thoughts in the comments.