Much time is spent lamenting the loss of once loved former rides by fans of factory muscle, as thoughts turn back to the days when the roads were well stocked with examples and terms like “rarity” and “matching numbers” were seldom uttered. Guys bought hot cars, ran ‘em hard and sent them down the road, looking to the next one. These days, it’s become somewhat common to hear backstories on restored muscle cars that involved an owner who was trying to get back what he once had.
In the latest issue of Hemmings Muscle Machines, we got to relay one of those stories that remained unresolved since the days when Sunoco 260 ran like water, and cost a little less. Regular contributor Joe Oldham is known for having been in the thick of the muscle car movement as it was happening, thanks to his position as a writer for Hi-Performance Cars magazine in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The magazine was based in New York City, and Joe was fairly well immersed in the street scene around The Big Apple at the time, hanging out in the “pits” of Connecting Highway and other street racing hot spots of the day. His experiences in testing the latest performance cars, both on the street and at the track, left him with an excellent perspective on what worked and what didn’t, and his connections with the automakers and the aftermarket allowed him to know where to order the good stuff and how to make it work right.
All of that came to a head when Joe decided to order a brand-new 1969 Camaro through Baldwin Chevrolet, via Joel Rosen and his Motion Performance outfit. By then, Joe was quite familiar with Rosen and Motion, having driven lots of the performance-tuner’s machinery, and he knew just what he wanted for his ultimate street Camaro.
The car was ordered as a Tuxedo Black Camaro SS, with the 396 and a THM400 automatic. Of course, as soon as it was delivered, Rosen yanked the 396 and replaced it with a 427 – the solid-lifter 425 horsepower version. The car was also treated to a host of aftermarket bits, wheels and tires and some traction aids, and dubbed an SS 427 before it was handed over to Joe.
That Camaro also wound up being the subject for Motion’s now-infamous “Wanted” advertisement (right), which appeared in print and took the form of an Old West wanted poster. In the center was Joe’s Camaro, up on its haunches and looking wicked. The car also appeared in other spots for Motion and on the company’s catalog cover, plus it was displayed to represent Motion at the car show at the New York Coliseum that year. The car was just what Joe wanted, and performed at least as well as he’d hoped. And then it was gone.
One morning, after having the car for maybe a year, Joe came down to find it gone, and it has never been seen since. In the decades to pass since that morning, Joe has often felt the pangs of that loss, but never got another Camaro to replace it. Images of that car and the tales behind it were featured in Joe’s 2007 book, Muscle Car Confidential: Confessions of a Muscle Car Test Driver; the ’69 even served as the cover subject.
Finally, after years of prodding, Joe’s sons, Scott and Steve, convinced their dad to build another. You can see the result of that quest on our July cover, and read Joe’s account of how what he described as “the coolest car I ever owned” came to be. But you can also read another piece by Joe that offers some backstory on what really sparked his desire to order that car in the first place. In the December 2012 issue of HMM, Joe recounted a test of a 1968 Motion Phase III Camaro he was involved with, and the impressions it left him with.
