The History of the Chevrolet Camero – 1968
1968 was the year of Woodstock, Jimmi Hendrix and the student riots in Paris. The war in Vietnam was gathering pace and the Flower Power was in vogue. 1968 heralded the improved Camaro. Not much was different from the 1967, but aficionados will have picked out the lack of front quarter windows and the inclusion of sidemarker lights which became mandatory for all U.S. cars in 1968. The front grill came to more of a point with rectangular sidelights and the grill was painted silver instead of matt black. All SS396 cars had a matt black rear panel.
Rally wheels were available in 15″ (P-28) size for the first time. The engineering improvements included staggered shock absorbers to eliminate axle wind up and multileaf springs were available on the more powerful V8’s. Larger body mounts were fitted and the Turbo Hydromatic auto was available for the first time.
The interior received some attention with the additional gauges arranged in a sawtooth pattern, and the hard to find ‘Tick Tock Tach’ with silver background combined a rev counter and a clock. The dash padding wrapped around the dash for the first time. Astro ventilation was installed, thus enabling the front quarter lights to be discarded. The metal inner door cappings were removed and replaced by complete vinyl door panels.
1968 could be called the year of the Z/28 because it really came into its own that year. The Z/28 was only a delayed option package for the 1967 model (only 602 were sold).
In 1968 the model was so designated as Z/28, having originally being nothing more than an RPO identification number. But Z/28 had a special ring to it and so Chevrolet stuck with it. This was helped by Mark Donohue’s success for the Penske team in the Trans-Am series. He won 10 out of 13 races in 1968 and Chevrolet sold 7,199 Z/28’s.
If comparing ‘67 and ‘68 models for desirability now, they rate a toss up. The ‘67 has the advantage of being the first model but the ‘68 models had better suspension and a more liveable interior. Overall, 235,147 models were sold in 1968 as against 220,907 in 1967. Unmolested Z/28’s are very rare and must rate as very desirable.
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