Lee Clark's (my Dad) 1969 Camaro
As many of you know my name is Scott and my wife Courtney and I created thanks2frank. This is our first ever featured car and in the name of full disclosure it belongs to my father. My father and his love of cars was the inspiration for this site so I thought it was only fitting if his car was featured first.
Thanks dad,
Love,
Scott
My parents purchased this 1969 Camaro from Hansen Chevrolet in Brigham City, Utah on January 26, 1970. Sticker price on the car was an economical $3,088.25, perfect for a young family.
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Yes, that is me (Scott) in 1977 at age nine showing off my handiwork. My mother asked me to go start the car so we could go to Roy Days. I sort of put the car in reverse and managed to stop it with our neighbor across the street’s 1969 Chevelle. (Interestingly, after I wrecked this Camaro again at age 17, I bought that very Chevelle from my neighbors)
The next year (1978) Richard Smith, an old friend of my fathers, at Iron Horse Autobody in Riverdale, Utah repaired the car. I had done such nice work on it that it had to be back halved. It was then painted back to its original dark green color.
The car was a daily driver until about 1981. In 1981 my parents purchased a Chevy Citation from Bob Dare at Merrill Bean Chevy. My parents tried to trade the Camaro in but Merrill Bean only offered them $400 for it so they decided to keep it (smart choice dad). My dad said the Citation was a piece of garbage, so much for the Motor Trend Car of the Year.
About 1985 Larry Price painted the car white in his garage and my parents gave the car to me for my 16th birthday. Larry put a really nice paint job on the car for less than $200. Sadly, about a year later I managed to destroy that paint job along with most of the front drivers side of the car in a collision in front of Kmart in Ogden, Utah (See photo below).
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After my father retrieved the Camaro from impound he did not return it to me, I guess two wrecks in the same car is a good limit. He started to collect some used parts to once again put the car back together this time for my younger brother Brett to drive.
In 1988, my dad hired Mike Pollack at M&J in Sunset, Utah to do the bodywork on the car and this time it was painted gold (see photo above). Brett managed to not wreck the car and drove it until he graduated, at which time it just became a spare car at my parents house. However my dad kept working on the car. In 1993 he had M&J do some work on the front end, then in ’94 the car went back to M&J to have power steering installed, that improved the drivablity of the car a bit but the biggest difference to the steering came in 1997 when for the first time the Camaro got a set of Radial Tires from the Super Shop in Ogden.
My father showed the car at Hill Air Force Base a few times while it was gold but mostly he just worked on it .
1999 was a big decision year for my father; he had to decide if he wanted to keep the stock 250 straight six cylinder in the car. After doing some research he decided to overhaul the original motor and have performance parts from Clifford Industries installed at the same time to give the car a little more go.
He hired Paul’s Automotive in Clearfield, Utah to do the overhaul. The engine was bored a bit, a new cam was installed, tuned headers were added and a Clifford Industries intake manifold was topped with a 500 CFM Edelbrock carburetor with an auto choke.
While the engine was out of the body Perk’s Auto in Clearfield was hired to clean and detail the engine compartment. Then once the engine was reinstalled in the body Master Muffler installed a new large diameter exhaust system. To further clean up the engine compartment the headers and brackets were sent to be coated at High Performance Coatings.
To make the car a bit more drivable in the summertime Gordies in Roy, Utah installed an air conditioning system from Vintage Air to keep us cool and a flex fan and shroud to keep the motor cool in 2000.
July of 2001 saw the car head off to Gary Lowe’s plastic media blasting shop for a good scrub down. The car was then sent back to M&J for a primer coating. Scott Padgett (my father’s nephew) painted the car. The car is Torch Red with black stripes.
Now the car was close to what you see below but it still needed a new interior so, in 2003, the car went to Mike Gallagher at Fabric Magic in Kaysville to have the new houndstooth interior kit from Classic Camaro installed.
The car was driven as discribed above until October of 2007 when a new set of Tork Thrust Polished Wheels replaced the old Keystones I had put on the car about 1986. The Photos below were taken at the 2008 Mountain West Street News Picnic at Sandridge Park in Roy, Utah.
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