1967 L78 Indy Pace Car Camaro: Rare as Rare Gets
Camaros just don't get much harder to find than the highly lauded 1967 L78 Pace Car convertible.
Small Percentage
Chevy had an instant hit on their hands with the first-gen Camaro, producing a whopping 220,906 of them in 1967 alone. But you certainly won't find a lot of L78 convertibles, especially Indy Pace Car replicas, outside of this one recently featured at Hot Rod.
Photos Courtesy of Hot Rod.
Numbers Game
Of all 1967 Camaros, only 25,141 (11%) were convertibles, and just 1,138 were outfitted with the L78 option. Thus, Hot Rod reckons that there can't be more than 125 to 150 1967 L78 convertibles in existence. And who knows how many were Pace Cars?
Photos Courtesy of Hot Rod.
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Lack of Information
Dan Bishop, the owner of this particular car, was actually looking for a 1970 L78 Chevelle convertible when he came across the Camaro, thanks to his friend. And that's when he found out that there just isn't much concrete data about these cars out there.
Photos Courtesy of Hot Rod.
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Going off the Rails
Despite doing a ton of research and joining several Pace Car groups, Bishop could only narrow production numbers down by attrition. "This is when my research went off the rails,” he told Hot Rod. “There is no definite number, only approximations that range from 100 to 300 or so."
Photos Courtesy of Hot Rod.
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Legit Find
Bishop did discover that this particular car was one of a few ordered by dealers and Chevrolet zone staff, not one of the ones used for promotional purposes or to actually pace the Indy 500. But it is a legit Pace Car, nonetheless.
Photos Courtesy of Hot Rod.
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In the Know
"Dealers had a one- to two-week window to order a car in this configuration," Bishop said. "It was sort of like the COPO system. You had to be in the know to order one." This particular car was ordered by V.V. Cooke, a Louisville, Kentucky, dealership.
Photos Courtesy of Hot Rod.
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One of Few
There's no telling how many of these cars were ordered with the L78 option, so Bishop was obviously intrigued. "By this time my interest in the car had skyrocketed since the owner indicated it was a numbers-matching, 1967 L78 M21 four-speed Camaro pace car," he explained. "My best guess is that there was just a handful of these cars produced."
Photos Courtesy of Hot Rod.
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One of Two?
The previous owner, Tyler Collins, certainly knew what he had. "I knew what this car was, and it deserved to be finished to the highest standard," he said. He also said it was "one of only two known listed in the registry and the only one with the fleet code."
Photos Courtesy of Hot Rod.
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Important Stuff
“I found the car in a small city close to Indy where a retired Air Force pilot had bought it while he was in the service," Collins explained. "When we found the car it was apart and a roller, but it came with all the important stuff The factory cowl tag, which has never been removed from the body, was still intact, and most of the parts were still with the car, as it had been off the road since the late 1970s."
Photos Courtesy of Hot Rod.
>>Join the conversation about this '67 L78 Camaro right here in the LS1 Tech Forum!
Expert Treatment
Since Bishop brought the car home, he's been frantically working to make it as original and perfect as possible. And truthfully, a car this rare and historically significant deserves that kind of attention!
Photos Courtesy of Hot Rod.
>>Join the conversation about this '67 L78 Camaro right here in the LS1 Tech Forum!
For help with service and maintenance of your car check out the how to section of LS1Tech.com.