A Clear-Cut Case of “How Do You Like Me Now?”
By John Gilbert • Photography: George Nunez
For John Prentice and the 1968 Camaro he bought as a 16 year-old high school student it was the car’s “underperforming inline 6 with a 3-speed manual transmission.” John said his six-banger ’68 Camaro looked fast with wide Rally wheels and factory spoiler, but when he fired it up his high school buddies said it sounded more like a Datsun 210 than a muscle car. John kept his ’68 Camaro for three years after high school and then regretfully sold it.
The build centers on a big-block 565 over-square cubic inches with ported pistons. Up top a pair of aluminum heads with titanium retainers and a Holley Dominator intake manifold and a 2-stage shot of nitrous adding 400-horsepower.
To handle cooling for the high compression beast there is an aluminum electric water pump, a three-row radiator with electric fans.
The Camaro is steady staple at John’s Ocean Speedway where the big-block prefers Sunoco 110 octane race fuel. The 565-inch power plant turned 7,200rpm dynoed with 1017 horsepower at the crank. Torque output was 775 lbft at 5,600rpm, and it’s estimated a double shot of nitrous peaks the horsepower at over 1,400.
John ran the ‘68 at the drags, and cruised it to the local car shows for a couple of years, but then decided he wanted the Camaro to look more like his first one. John got in touch with Gary at Gary’s Rods & Restorations in Watsonville, California, where the two agreed upon a paint scheme that would include flames like on a model of a Camaro one of his sons had in his room.
As car project plans often go a color change soon turned into reupholstering the interior and then ultimately blowing the ‘68 all the way down to the bare shell and taking the high-end approach from the ground up.
Inside is where John’s Camaro really enters the luxury pro street category with full custom leather interior. Finish Line of Santa Clara, California, stitched gray leather accented with brushed aluminum inserts and carpeted with wool throughout. A 14-inch Formula style leather wrapped steering wheel faces the leather covered Camaro dash equipped with custom color Classic Instruments Auto Cross series gauges.
We didn’t ask John if he was planning on attending a high school reunion anytime soon, but if he did and ran into anyone of his old buddies that said his ’68 Camaro sounded like a Datsun 210 there’s no question in our mind John would greet them with “How do you like my Camaro now”?