Jeff was a very frugal teenager who had saved a lot of money. He was aware of a 1969 Yenko Camaro a close friend was currently racing in NHRA Super Stock. He contacted his friend and made an offer.
The negotiations were short lived, and Jeff bought the Camaro for an unbelievable sum of $3,900.00 in 1974.
During the late ’60s, Don Yenko owned and operated a Chevrolet dealership located in Cannonsburg, Pennsylvania that specialized in supplying high-performance modifications to factory supercars. These cars were given special decals and emblems that labeled them as “Yenko/SC” for Yenko Supercar.
In 1967 and 1968, the Yenko conversions replaced the 396 cubic-inch powered Camaros with the L72 427 engine. In 1969, Mr. Yenko leveraged the 9561 COPO system to have the L72 427 engine installed at the factory along with a standard 4.10 ratio posi-traction axle and an additional COPO 9737 package also known as the sports car conversion.
According to these records and the data plate, Jeff’s Camaro was assembled during the first week of July 1969 at the Norwood, Ohio assembly plant. The original color was Fathom green with black bucket-seat interior and automatic transmission. This makes Jeff’s Yenko Camaro 1 of only 30 equipped with automatic transmission and 1 of only 7 Fathom green automatics.
After beginning to resurrect the Camaro himself and nearly 45 years of storage and preservation of his ultra rare street racing legend Camaro, Jeff Etchison passed away on May 14th, 2017. The car was sold to a well deserving close acquaintance of Etchison’s family and is currently undergoing a full restoration.
