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For Jack McEwan and his 1967 RS Camaro, this story starts December 6th, 1971, that was the day that Jack bought the lightly used 1967 Chevy Camaro RS from Ruddell’s Chevrolet in Port Angeles, Washington. “They sold it new,” Jack explained, “The original guy had it in Forks for three years.” As a resident of Port Angeles, Jack has kept the car local.
Marina blue with blue interior and the RS chrome is a good look for this car!
As you can imagine, being only four years old, the car was in really good shape. Jack definitely did well on the deal. The car had a really weird option package though, with an unusual combination of high end options and a lack of simple things. First off, the car came from the factory as a 6-cylinder, which is a little unusual for the RS package. “I’m on my third V8 in it now though,” Jack explained.
The car came with a front row bench seat, rear fold down seat, rear window defogger, a driver side remote mirror, and the RS trim package. “It also had a trailer hitch on it when I bought it,” Jack said. Along with all those options, it had a radio delete, a clock delete, and a floor shifter for the 3-speed transmission. The option package is a mixture of a little bit of everything.
That vent in the center of the package tray is the rear-window defogger (left). One of the changes that Jack has made to the car is the addition of Wilwood disc brakes (right).
Now it has a Turbo-350 automatic transmission with a Gear Vendors overdrive bolted onto the back, and it has a 12-bolt rearend with 4.11:1 gearing. The engine itself is a 350 cubic-inch small-block Chevy that was a crate motor direct from GM. Mounted on top of that motor is a Ram-Jet EFI system.
Although he’s had the car for all these years, it sat for quite some time and has only been back on the road since 2009. “I ended up parking it for 25-years,” he explained, “And it took 2-years to restore it when I started working on it again.”
It's hard to beat a car like this, and the headlight doors are a really cool feature.
“I really like how the paint tuned out,” he explained. “I have a friend that lives nearby that I’ve known for 40-years and he’s the one that did it for me. He called one day and asked if I was ready for it to be painted.” Heck yes he was ready, after the car sitting for so long, it was time to get it done. They went with the original marina blue color of the car, and it looks spectacular.
How weird is that to have a bench seat in a Camaro? It's cool though because it's something you never see.
Inside and out, this is a really good looking Camaro. The vibrantly colored interiors like what you find in a Camaro of this vintage are one of the many beautiful things we’ve lost in the modern era. The bench seat adds a whole different look to the car as well that’s unusual and makes this one stand out in our mind.
What do you think of Jack’s car? How about the bench seat and other unusual options? Would you keep it this way or change it up? Tell us about it in the comments below. If you have a cool muscle car that you’ve held on to since back in the day, we want to hear about it. Whether it’s still on the road, a work in progress, or a barn find, shoot us an email and tell us all about it. You could end up internet famous as one of our Street Features.
