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Some Assembly Required
Dave and Ida Frazier from Abington, Massachusetts, have been having a great time in their ’69 Chevy Camaro they built with the extra money they had after the kids graduated college.
Dave Frazier from Abington, Massachusetts, started drag racing in the early ‘60s, but after a government- sponsored trip to Vietnam and a growing family with then new wife, Ida, Dave had to take a break from his automotive obsessions. Dave and Ida worked hard raising their family and putting their kids (David and Brenda) through college. As their last child neared graduation, Dave started preparing his wife and his psyche for the eventual purchase of a rod by telling her that he wanted a ’69 Chevy Camaro for Christmas and/or his birthday. In 1997 his wife picked up a ’69 Camaro and hid it at their son’s house until Dave’s birthday. Surprise! That’s when the fun really began. The Camaro was clean, but still needed 30 years of abuse and neglect fixed. At first, Dave was going to go with a simple build, but as the rotted panels started coming off, “one thing lead to another” as Dave describes it. Dave planned on building a driver and wanted to update the chassis for modern driving. The front sub-frame was welded, smoothed and boxed.
Upper and lower A-arms from Fat Man were fitted to the sub-frame. Disc brakes were hung off the spindles and QA1 coil-overs were slipped into place. The rear suspension is a complete four-bar suspension bouncing a 3.70-geared Ford 9-inch on coil-overs from Art Morrison. The front and rear sub-frames were then attached to a full rollcage. Dave originally fitted the rod with smallblock Chevy power, but every time Dave and Ida went to a show Dave would gravitate to the GMPP booth were he would drool for hours over the new 572 big-block engines. Ida decided to step in and surprise him with a 572ci package for his birthday just before the car went to paint. Dave threw on a Demon carb, Lemon’s headers and backed the power combo up with a 4L80E electronic overdrive tranny from Hughes Transmissions—620 horses the easy way. The body required a bit of work to get it up to snuff, but Dave didn’t stop at stock. All of the exterior chrome was removed (except the grille trim).
The door handles, trunk and firewall were shaved. The hood was replaced with a tall cowl-induction hood with billet aluminum Ring Brothers hinges. A rear spoiler was added with a Watson’s LED third brake light and custom Watson’s LED rear taillights. Tons of tiny details were added or taken care of such as 90 MARCH the tightly fitted and body-colored bumpers; the embossed trunk for the aftertuition graphic; and he added chrome mirrors and slick new stainless wiper assemblies. Peps Rod Shop smoothed everything out and got the lines perfect before they laid down the House of Kolor Torch Red basecoat. Rick Brine laid out the House of Kolor Candy Cobalt Blue flames and Alex Olivera pinstriped the ride. The look is finalized with Weld Wheels’ ProStar mags wrapped in itty-bitty Hoosiers up front and massive 18-inch Hoosiers in the rear. The first thing we noticed about the interior was the nicely integrated rollbar, but man did we miss the boat! The dash from a ’55 Chevy was modified to fit in place of the stocker, smoothed and then filled with Auto Meter gauges. A center console was fabricated by Peps and filled with Auto Meter gauges, a B&M shifter and an armrest. The finishing touch is the ididit column wearing a billet steering wheel. Peps Rod Shop stitched the off-white leather interior around the Nissan Maxima bucket seats that use Simpson five-point harnesses to hold Dave and Ida in place. Ida then wired everything together with a Painless Wiring kit and hit the road. We thought we’d leave you with Dave’s own words about his ride; “Since hitting the road in 2008 we’ve put 11,000 miles on the car (and wrecked the front end once) and enjoyed every minute of it. We’ve met a lot of people and made some great friends. Building a car has been a long journey, one that I would gladly take again. My wife and I look forward to our trips every year. My next project is a ’55 Chevy for my wife.” Sounds like payback is the best medicine.
