Barn Find! Rare, Highly Optioned 1969 Chevy Camaro RS/SS Found After Four Decades
Locked away since 1983, this Camaro is going to be back on the road.
Barn finds are something we all dream about discovering, but few of us actually do. Today the term "barn find" refers to any really cool classic car that's found stuffed away in some dusty corner, old field, or the like, so it doesn't actually have to be a barn (although that is a pretty cool bonus).
This time around, the find in question is a pretty iconic ride, namely a 1969 Chevrolet Camaro RS/SS big-block 396 (325 hp). This one was built at the Van Nuys, California, plant and originally sold by Bob Coyle Chevrolet in San Jose, California. The great news is this Camaro came with a ton of original documents, including the original Protect-o-Plate (a small metal or plastic plaque GM started including with cars in the '60s to help track warranty repairs, but which now can help verify the originality of classic vehicles). The original sales invoice was lost to time, however some of the surviving paperwork shows the second owners bought the Camaro as a used car from a Volkswagen dealership in 1972. It also reveals they got a whopping $100.04 for a 1960 Buick they traded in.
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In 1972, the Camaro was just another slightly used car. Soon after the new owners bought the 396 big-block Camaro, they stripped off the vinyl top and repainted the car from its original Dover White to a charcoal gray. They also installed an aftermarket cruise-control unit and some very fashionable Cragar wheels that you can see in the surviving period photo in the gallery. We must say that it was a pretty nice-looking ride at this point.
What's even cooler is that the RS/SS 396 Camaro was the wife's daily driver, and it made annual ski trips to Mammoth Mountain with five people shoehorned inside. For whatever reason, the big-block Camaro was parked in 1983. When the car was recently located in the garage it called home, it still had both of its original black California plates, the original 14-inch rally wheels, and a few other goodies including an new old stock steering wheel that was purchased from the dealer more than 30 years ago.
The RS/SS 396 Camaro has been off the road for nearly 40 years, the last 13 of which it had been gathering dust alongside two late '30s Chevys. Over the years the Camaro's tires had rotted out and gone flat, so it was moved from its parking spot using dollies so the new owner could install tires capable of holding air.
That's right, the Camaro was sold. (Those other old Chevys are available, too.) The new owner, Tom, spent a lot of energy talking the owners into selling him their forgotten gem, but his persistence paid off, and now the Camaro is his and will once again be back on the highway. A restoration back to Dover White? A pro-touring rework? I'm sure we all have our own ideas on what we would do with such a find, but whatever happens, we're happy knowing it will be back cruising in the sunshine.
What's crazy is we keep seeing these barn finds and think, "Man, all the hidden cars must have been found by now!" Yet that doesn't seem to be the case—witness this '69 Camaro Z/28!—and as these cars are reintroduced to the automotive population, the classic-car hobby and automotive world is all the better for it.
I was born and raised in Southern California and have always been into classic cars. My first car was a 1964.5 Mustang that I remember tossing Centerline wheels on and giving a midnight blue paint job to. It was a straight six, which most likely kept me alive. After high school I picked up a 1967 Camaro and spent all my money at Super Shops fixing it up. It rolled on 16-inch IROC wheels, which in the 1980s was pretty cutting edge. I'm old enough that Big Daddy Ed Roth pinstriped my car in his driveway. In 2004 I was hired on as Technical Editor for Popular Hot Rodding and later I did the same gig at Camaro Performers where we built a 1968 Camaro called Bad Penny (Google it). Later I was editor for Vette and Super Chevy Magazines before ending up here at HOT ROD as a Senior Tech Editor.
I've had the pleasure of building and being involved with quite a few cars from the above-mentioned Bad Penny Camaro to a 1968 Camaro called Track Rat and a 1,000 horsepower 1971 Wagon rolling on a Roadster Shop chassis. I've owned a few ZL1/1LE Camaros, a couple of Porsche GT4s and currently I'm working over a sweet 1972 LS-swapped Chevelle wagon to see if we can make this 4,000 beast handle on track. I live in SoCal with my partner April where I still spend way too much time thinking about the next big project.
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