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My husband Brian never gets tired of hearing it. “It’s really your wife’s car and she actually drives it?” He just smiles and tries to explain.

I’ve always wanted a pro-street Camaro. Brian always wanted a ’41 Willys coupe. He purchased and built his Willys but the dreams of my pro-street Camaro were put on the backburner rusting, literally. He had bought a decent ’70 RS Camaro to restore for me but it ended up getting the engine sold out of it, stripped of it’s paint, put in primer and put out back. It was starting to look more like a planter than a car.

In August 2003 he called me and said, “Before you head to work, check out the ’69 Camaro parked on the side of the road with the for sale sign in it”. I just laughed. There was no way we could afford another car when we were still building the Willys! He convinced me to check it out anyway.

It was in decent shape but needed help. It had rusty quarter panels and trunk along with a terrible paint job. It looked good from about 10 feet away but don’t get too close! They wanted more than we could afford but it was a fair price. I called my husband and gave him the scoop. He decided to drop by and look at it on the way home from work.

Turns out the car had to be sold because the owner was moving to Hawaii at the end of the week. Brian drove it, found lots of flaws and then made an offer. They refused but hours later tracked him down and my Camaro came home.

We purchased the car on a Friday and by Sunday Brian had temporarily repaired the rust damage on the quarter panels and re-painted them. After that Brian changed the motor’s top end and cam, added Centerline Convo Pro wheels and new tires and then added nitrous. A couple of months later Brian managed to kill the nitrous motor so he bought another motor and went about building the blower motor I always wanted. I drove it all of summer 2004 with my blower motor and had a blast.

In October 2004 he decided to do a complete rebuild so it looked good close up as well as 10 feet away! Shortly after that I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis so Brian decided he wanted to get my rebuild done fast just in case my driving ended up being affected at some point in the future. Brian did a record 8 month rebuild while still working his regular full-time job. It was stripped down to bare metal, new quarter panels were installed and stretched so the 31x18.50’s would fit. Then it was back halved, a 10 point cage put in and a new 4-link suspension was installed, all put in by another friend of ours, John Heft. Brian custom fabricated a dash since the old dash had to be removed so that the dash crossbar could be installed behind it instead of below the dash. The firewall and factory floor were removed and replaced with fabricated floor and smooth firewall. After that the engine compartment and trunk were both detailed out with all the non-necessary factory installed holes filled for a sleeker and more finished look. The only other exterior modification was filling the factory seams on the quarter panels and smoothing the wiper armholes in the cowl panel. We wanted the car to look clean but not overly modified. Brian then did all the bodywork and painted it.

Once painted the car was finally ready to put back together! It was finished in June of 2005 and I went to my first car show in July. I ended up winning 13 awards between July and September including two Best of Shows! Now have had 28 awards and counting. Our goal with this car was to always have it running so we could take advantage of the few sunny days we have here in Washington and we haven’t missed one yet!

Stats on my 1969 Pro-Street Camaro
.030 350 Supercharged 671
Appx. 650hp
Trick Flow Heads
Schneider Solid Cam
Barry Grant 650cfm carbs
Hooker Super Comp Headers
MSD Distributor & Ignition
Barry Grant Fuel Pump & Filter
Wilwood Front Disc Brakes
QA1 Front Coil-Over Shocks
4-link suspension, cage & 9” housing by John Heft
35 spline spool, 4:11 gears
3000 stall converter
31x18.50 Hoosier tires
Centerline Convo Pro Wheels
Smooth firewall, complete new floor
Frame welded & filled
3" Spintech exhaust
Ron Francis Wiring
Custom fabricated Dash & Interior
Paint by Brian Moore
Built and maintained by Brian Moore

First photos are of my '69 during build and then finished.

Details on Pro-Street '41 Willys Coupe - owned by my husband
Supercharged 454, BDS 871
Appx. 720hp
Cutting Edge Composite Body
Performance Carbs 750cfm
Full Stainless Exhaust
Air Ride Suspension
31x18.50 Hoosier QuickTime Pros, Billet Specialties Wheels
Borla Exhaust
8 pt. cage
Ron Francis Wiring

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