Student-Built ’68 Camaro Gets A New Beginning

Second chances are what the car hobby is all about. Most projects begin with a worn (or worn-out) or derelict automobile that was once someone’s brand-new pride and joy. Such is the case with this 1968 Camaro and the students who built it. The car itself needed a new beginning and those who had a hand in its build are part of the Lost Angels Career Center, a non-profit that serves disadvantaged youth, families, and distressed communities through vo-tech training and other means. 

“It’s a vocational, non-profit program in Lancaster, California. We cater to at-risk youth, so low-income, foster care, and all that, 18-25 years-old,” says Kevin Darwish, a drift driver and Marketing Director for the Lost Angels Career Center, ”All the students are paid. They’re making $18 per hour. We have a 97 percent graduation rate, 95 percent graduating with jobs in, mainly, the aerospace and automotive industries.” 

How did this Camaro come about? The school built three cars last year for the SEMA Show, with the F-body you see here being the main one.

Utilizing Darwish’s background in motorsports, they decided to build carbon fiber, wide-body drift car. Heck, the Camaro was sitting idly, just withering away at the school’s campus. We were captivated by its outlandish styling and eggshell blue paint when we saw it at the Magnuson Superchargers booth at PRI. 

Darwish has been drifting for 15 years, so he had a lot of contacts in the automotive aftermarket. At SEMA 2024, he approached a number of companies about donating products, including Magnuson, Holley, Tick Performance, Blueprint Engines, QA1 and Detroit Speed.

“Everybody wanted to partner up with the project,” Darwish explained. “We started building the car in January [2025] but the bulk of the work was done in the last four months [before its debut]. Everything was done in house and all the students got to touch every facet of the vehicle — powertrain, carbon fiber, engine, wheels — A to Z was built in the school.

Best of all, the students got to go to SEMA 2025 to witness the unveiling at the show.

The front end is completely carbon fiber. Auto Metal Direct (AMD) donated all new body panels to replace the dilapidated sheetmetal. The front fenders were sliced and widened and used to make carbon fiber molds. Obviously, the hood, splitter and spats are all carbon fiber. 

The rear diffuser and decklid are carbon fiber, so too are the side skirts and rear spats. The doors were supposed to be carbon fiber, but they simply ran out of time, so they’re steel. All in, Darwish says the lightweight body panels removed about 600 pounds from the vehicle.

Under The Carbon Fiber Bonnet

Power comes from a Blueprint Engines LS3 topped with a Magnuson 2650 supercharger and dual throttle bodies. (the Camaro was featured in the Magnuson booth at the 2025 Performance Racing Industry convention in Indianapolis. 

Detroit Speed supplied the hydroformed front subframe and suspension. Remarkably, the students designed and built the cantilever rear suspension and used QA1 coilover shocks. Incredibly, according to Darwish, the system was designed on CAD by the students. It was cut on their plasma table and fit perfectly upon the first attempt at installation. This was not their first cantilever rear suspension, either. The did one for a truck for the Lancaster Police Department in 2024.

Ensuring all those suspension goodies work to their fullest, a set of custom three-piece Motegi wheels were created explicitly for this vehicle; they are 18×9.5 front and 19×12 in the rear. The rear axle was shortened by 3.5-inches on each side. They are wrapped in Toyo Proxes tires (255/35s in front, 325/30s rear). Ensuring short, repeatable stops are massive Baer brakes (14-inch rotors fore, 13-inches aft).

As of this shoot, the base tune and alignment was still in the car, but not the full track ready setups. Once the car is fully dialed in, the plan is to take it to Willow Springs International Raceway, where the students will get ride-alongs.