La première Camaro ZL1

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By 1969 NHRA Super Stock drag racing was as big as it had ever been, with the factories battling every weekend across the country to win new fans, and buyers, to their respective brands. So it was only natural that Chevrolet’s determined Product Promotions Manager Vince Piggins and two of his drag racing stalwarts should pool their talents and imaginations to come up with one of the wildest and most famous Super Stockers of all time, the Fred Gibb-Dick Harrell 1969 ZL1 Camaro.

The first of a total of 69 ZL1 Camaros, the Gibb-Harrell car was born of an idea hatched by Gibb and Piggins through the course of several discussions about running Chevrolet’s new all-aluminum Can-Am 427 engine in NHRA Super Stock. Rules required that Chevy build 50 examples for the car to qualify for competition. It was a hefty order but, given the estimated unit cost of $4900, Gibb believed the numbers would work and committed to taking the entire minimum order of 50 cars. Piggins then activated the COPO ordering process, specifying that COPO 9560 add an all-aluminum 427 engine, cold-air induction, Harrison 4-core radiator, transistorized ignition, multi-leaf rear springs and a heavy-duty 4.10 12-bolt rear end.

Weeks turned to months and it seemed that the cars were mired in the GM bureaucracy, until GM Vice President Pete Estes discovered an engineering stop-order had been placed on the project. Estes issued a special memo ordering that two cars be immediately built and delivered to Fred Gibb Chevrolet, and in a most unusual departure from the norm, work began over the Christmas holiday to fulfill the boss’ unequivocal demand.

The first and second ZL1 Camaros arrived at Fred Gibb Chevrolet covered in snow on New Year’s Eve, 1968. It was so cold the cars would not start and had to be towed off the transporter. The first car was immediately sent to Dick Harrell’s Kansas City, Missouri shop, where Harrell readied it for its scheduled debut at the 1969 AHRA Winternationals three weeks later at Phoenix. Piloted by Gibb Chevrolet employee Herb Fox, the car served notice on its competitors that trouble lay on the horizon when it beat the two top qualifiers before losing in the semi-final to eventual winner Arlen Vanke’s Barracuda. The most alarming part of the day for the Mopar contingent came when Fox eliminated Mr. Four-Speed himself, Ronnie Sox, in the Sox & Martin Hemi Barracuda.

Harrell demonstrated the car’s performance for Super Stock magazine in February 1969, turning 10.41 at 128.10 mph with the stock Holley 850, and 10.29 with dual 660 Holleys on a Weiand tunnel-ram. The Gibb-Harrell ZL1 Camaro then barnstormed the country, racking up victories in both AHRA and NHRA competition. In 1971 the car was converted to the new AHRA Pro Stock rules and driven by Jim Hayter, who set the AHRA Pro Stock record of 9.63 at 143 mph and won the AHRA Championship in both Super Stock and Pro Stock.

The car then went the way of many an obsolete drag racer, disappearing into bracket competition for years until it surfaced in an ad in National Dragster in 1983. Oldsmobile engineer and ZL1 fanatic Bill Porterfield saw the ad and began a five-year pursuit of the car through two different owners, finally landing it in 1988. Porterfield then began the laborious task of returning ZL1 Number 1 to its earlier state of glory and grace. This included, of course, building a correctly-equipped Winters foundry “ME” coded aluminum 427 rat motor. Assembled entirely from authentic 1969 castings and built to withstand the rigors of both regular display and occasional full-power runs, the 427 was machined and put together by Chuck Wright at Batten Engineering.

After stripping the car to its bare shell Porterfield literally attended to every square inch to insure the correctness of the restoration, rebuilding or replacing dozens of components. So thorough was Porterfield’s attention to detail that he actually searched across five states to find the correct pattern of lace to duplicate the original paint scheme! Before debuting the newly restored ZL1 Number 1 at the 1989 Super Chevy Sunday in Indianapolis, Porterfield took it to a special stop along the way, reuniting it with Fred Gibb at his home in LaHarpe, Illinois, where 150 close friends and neighbors dropped by to celebrate with Fred and see his beloved old friend.

An astounding rarity, the Fred Gibb-Dick Harrell ZL1 Camaro could just as easily have been restored to its factory-original state had Porterfield chosen to do so. Thankfully, he was determined to pay homage to its creators, its history as a World Champion drag racing legend and its status as Number One in the ZL1 lineage of classic COPO Camaros.