True Muscle Car Fan Stories: A Girl, A Dream, And a 67 Camaro RS/SS

In 1984, a dare on a dirt road outside Kingman, Arizona taught Vicki how to drive a stick shift in her sister’s black 1967 Camaro RS/SS — and planted a want that took nearly thirty years to satisfy. In 2013, she finally found her own, an almost perfectly restored example listed on Craigslist in Brooklyn, Michigan. Read on for how one proving-them-wrong moment turned into a lifelong Camaro obsession, complete with a matching-numbers engine still waiting for its turn.

She wasn’t supposed to be able to drive a stick shift, at least according to the friends riding along with her that day on a dirt road outside Kingman, Arizona. Every one of them said so, loudly enough that it became a dare she couldn’t ignore. What happened next — a clutch dropped just right, second gear slammed home, a controlled fishtail down a dirt road with everyone screaming and laughing in the back — planted a seed that wouldn’t fully bloom for nearly thirty years, when she finally tracked down and bought the exact car that started it all.

A Borrowed Camaro and a Dare

It was 1984 when Vicki, one of the many members of the Muscle Car Fan community, first laid eyes on her sister’s black 1967 Camaro RS/SS. She describes it as love at first sight, though it would be years before the car became her own. Nearly forty years later, that single dare would end up shaping a decision she made as an adult with her own money and her own driveway to park it in. The turning point came on an ordinary drive to a party, when her sister let her get behind the wheel and a car full of friends immediately started ribbing her about whether she could even handle a stick shift. Rather than argue, she waited for her moment to prove them wrong.

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Learning to Drive Stick the Hard Way

That moment came once they’d left town behind, out on a dirt road in Kingman, Arizona. Without saying a word, Vicki slowed the Camaro down, dropped it into first gear, and eased the clutch out while feeding in the throttle. What followed was, in her words, the car and driver becoming one: she floored it, wound out first gear, slammed second, and got the car hauling in a way that surprised everyone in the cabin. There was controlled fishtailing, but no ditch-diving, no grinding the clutch, no coughing from the engine — just clean, confident acceleration that shut every doubter up instantly.

The Moment the Car and the Driver Became One

The passengers, who moments earlier had been questioning whether she could drive the car at all, ended up screaming and laughing with excitement instead. Vicki describes the feeling of winding the Camaro out, smoothly working through the gears, and hearing the secondaries open up alongside the rumble of dual exhaust as a ride she never forgot. It wasn’t just about proving her critics wrong — it was the first time she’d genuinely felt what a muscle car with real power underneath her could do, and the experience left a mark that outlasted the drive itself by decades.

A Feeling That Took Thirty Years to Chase Down

From that day on, Vicki carried an admiration for the 1967 Camaro RS/SS specifically, along with muscle cars of that era generally, that never faded with time. It took until 2013 — nearly three decades after that dirt-road ride — before she got serious about actually finding her own. Plenty of people carry a memory like that one and never act on it at all, which makes Vicki’s eventual follow-through feel less like an impulse buy and more like a promise she’d made to her younger self. That kind of gap between a formative experience and finally acting on it is common in the muscle car world, where careers, families, and finances often push the dream car search down the priority list for years before circumstances finally line up to make it possible.

Finding the Right One on Craigslist

The search ended in Brooklyn, Michigan, where Vicki found exactly the car she’d been picturing since 1984, listed on Craigslist and described as almost perfectly restored. The seller took her for a ride before the sale, but wouldn’t let her drive it herself until the deal was actually done — a common enough practice among private sellers protective of a well-restored classic. Once it was hers and she pulled it out of his driveway, Vicki calls it one of the happiest days of her life, driving it home calmly, fully aware that decades of wanting had just been answered in a single afternoon.

Small Changes to a Nearly Perfect Restoration

Even with the car close to perfect on arrival, Vicki made her mark on it. The factory-style Cragar mag wheels on the back, which she admits to genuinely liking, got swapped out a few weeks after the purchase in favor of bias-style redline sidewall tires and rally wheels — a period-correct look that better matched her own taste for the car. It’s a small enough change that most passersby would never clock it, but it’s exactly the kind of personal detail that turns a restored car into someone’s own rather than just a well-preserved example of the model. The current drivetrain runs a 350-cubic-inch V8 with a four-barrel carburetor, paired with a 350 Turbo automatic transmission and a 12-bolt rear end, a combination that keeps the car genuinely drivable rather than a trailer queen.

The Matching-Numbers Engine Still Waiting

Sitting in reserve is the car’s original matching-numbers engine, a 350 rated at 295 horsepower, which came with the Camaro when Vicki bought it and remains on her list to eventually overhaul and reinstall. Until that project happens — and likely for a good while after — she says she’ll keep driving the car gently, the way she puts it, “like Miss Daisy,” at least until nobody’s watching. It’s a fitting bookend to a story that started with a dare on a dirt road: three decades later, the woman who once floored a borrowed Camaro to prove a point now drives her own, on her own terms, and it’s proof that even a nearly finished restoration can still leave room for one more project, whenever the timing finally feels right.

Why the First-Year Camaro Still Matters

Share your own first-muscle-car memories in the comments below.

Vicki’s Camaro carries extra significance simply by being a 1967 model — the very first year Chevrolet built the Camaro at all, rushed into production specifically to compete with Ford’s Mustang. The RS and SS packages she owns represented two of the most desirable options available that debut year, the RS adding hidden headlights and unique trim while the SS brought genuine performance hardware to the table. First-year Camaros carry a particular cachet among Chevrolet collectors precisely because they represent the starting point of a nameplate that’s remained in continuous or near-continuous production for decades since, making Vicki’s restored example not just a personal dream fulfilled but a small piece of a much longer automotive story.

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