Most car crazies like us build their cars to drive them, not put them on a rack, stand back, and admire the handicraft, be it ours or someone else’s. Most people envision themselves insulated, apart from the rest, because after all, it is their car, their prize, their sanctum. So the idea is not to build certain of their popular icon, eschewing labels, types, and the latest sizzling cattle prod. Their mission, their quest, has just as much to do with altruism as it does with ego. The idea is to present a form pleasing to the eye of others all the while deriving satisfaction from motives of their own.
Consider Air Force pilot Nathan Devonshire and his ’69 raggy. By its virtue of its unstructured top, a convertible is not known as a pillar of strength and stability, especially one of this vintage. Convertibles are for fun driving, not meant as omnipotent corner carvers or inhabitants of any other sub-phylum that incurs massive torsional and bending stress. Stiff chassis members and additional reinforcement are paramount on cars with fixed roofs. In a convertible, these changes amount to crucial add-ons but are just playing catch-up.
Nate is a good example. He describes his car’s most unique feature as the green and silver paint combination. “It really grabs your attention but isn’t over-the-top and ridiculous … I spent a very long time trying to find the exact color I was looking for. I first saw it on a ’72 Chevelle convertible and I knew that’s what I wanted.” Why then, did he build this particular car? “There wasn’t a special reason,” he offered. “I have always wanted to restore a 1969 Chevy Camaro but I never had the time or space to take on such a big project.
“I began looking for a ’69 in 2003-04 when I was on a deployment in Afghanistan. Once home, I began looking in magazines, the local traders, and so on. I was looking for a Camaro in any condition, a forgotten project car, a matching numbers car; you get the picture. I couldn’t find the one that made me say, ‘Wow, that’s a really nice car I’d like to have’ or ‘Man, I could really do something with that pile of bolts.’ I finally found a pile of bolts and rust in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
“The car was a plain Jane V-8 convertible. A friend and I drove out to Tulsa from Florida. We left on a Friday evening and got back Sunday night.” Nate tried it one way. It didn’t work. The “customizer” jailed his ride for more than a year and did absolutely no rehabilitation. After hearing, “We’ll be getting to it next week” a dozen times, he wised up and pulled his protégé.
“After a year of lies, I got in touch with Frank Serafine at Prodigy Customs in Apopka [Orlando], Florida. He got the car from the garage and trailered it to his shop. Prodigy had to replace everything that the previous shop had done incorrectly and the car was broken down all the way to the floor pan, firewall, and A-pillars. Clearly, I should have taken the car to him a year before I did. Then it was two and half years of restoring the car and upgrading and updating every square inch of it.”
Blowing the Camaro apart facilitated every phase of the build. Prodigy began with the chassis but kept the changes to the basics that most would consider. They didn’t see the need for a hydroformed front clip, just the bare, freshly scrubbed basics to hang on it. Hotchkis anti-sway bars (hollow 1 1/8-inch front; three-way adjustable 7/8-inch rear) were paired with 1 1/2-inch drop springs and Bilstein non-adjustable dampers. The rear is suspended by Hotchkis 1 1/2-inch drop leaf springs and matching Bilsteins. The rear bar cohabits with a sway bar brace as part of the Hotchkis TVS. No tubular anything. No frame connectors. No wheel tubs. No rollcage. That’s how simple it is. Set the stance and don’t look back.