Although the car was just a roller, the shell was in good shape, making a great start for the project; that was nearly 30 years ago. Once in Carl’s hands, the wheels started turning and ideas began to flow. Soon, parts were showing up at the Melendez garage, ready to transform this unassuming Camaro into a modern-day muscle ride brimming with top-notch speed shop goodies.

Now, Carl wasn’t going to settle for just any rebuild of his Camaro. He wanted his new ride to not only look the part of a modern runner but also be built with some serious muscle to back it up. “I started this project before Pro Touring was a thing. I purchased everything I could from Detroit Speed back then and did it all myself in my garage. It had suspension upgrades, big wheels, and an LT1 setup from a 1994 Corvette. I drove the crap out of it with that setup,” Carl states.

But like all good things, the thought of making it even better haunted Carl over the years. Finally, one day he decided that the Camaro was going to go through another metamorphosis, figuring that the car could be so much more than it already was. “I brought it into the garage and took it apart,” Carl says. “Not long after, I realized that I just didn’t have the time to do it all myself, so it sat for a while.”

That hibernation period ended in 2019 when Carl finally decided to get some help. He took it to his friends at Main Street Classics in Lindenhurst, New York, to take over the project and create his vision of what he thought a modern Pro Tourer should be.

To build the car that Carl was after, MSC started with a Roadster Shop chassis, using their 1967-1969 Camaro/Firebird SPEC kit. The setup cradles the Camaro body comfortably, and contours to the stock floors so no modifications are needed. It also gets the car down to a 7.25-inch ride height, to give it that low center of gravity.

From there, Main Street worked with the included rack-and-pinion steering setup and handily fine-tuned the Camaro’s suspension with the installed tubular control arms and Penske coilover shocks. Out back, it was more of the same, with the coilovers working along with Roadster Shop’s parallel four-bar setup. A beefy Ford 9-inch was incorporated and stuffed with 3.73 gears and 31-spline axles.

“I decided right away that I needed a modern drivetrain in the Camaro, so an LSA from a 2014 ZL1 Camaro was extracted and delivered to Main Street for its inclusion in the project. The supercharged 6.2L is good for 553 hp and 551 lb-ft of tire-twisting torque right out of the box. The installation of the big powerplant was painless thanks to the Camaro’s modern chassis. Along with this monster mill, the guys added the matching 6L90E six-speed automatic transmission to get the ride through the gears.

With the Camaro’s sheetmetal in reasonably good shape, the bodywork process went relatively smoothly, but Carl also wanted a few custom touches, including the addition of heat exchanger vents on the hood, installing a rear wing from Kindig It Design, shaving the bumpers, fabbing in a set of Ringbrothers door handles, adding mini-tubs, and finally a front splitter from Anvil Auto. They also did the rear tail panel and bezels in satin black and removed reverse lights. After the body mods, Main Street laid down a brilliant layer of Kaiser Metallic—a one-year-only color from Acura.

Of course, we couldn’t finish off this tale without talking about that stunning interior on the Camaro. “The typical interior colors just weren’t going to cut it this time. So, I rang up Gillin Auto Interiors in Florida, New York. I also went up there twice just to pick out the color that was going to accent this Camaro.” Carl confirms. “There was nothing safe about it and I wanted it to really pop, so we chose Amon Blue, a Lamborghini color for the interior.”

Gillin took it from there, building a totally one-off cockpit using Relicate leather for the upholstery. They performed their magic on a pair of Recaro LX seats up front and modified an original rear seat to fit between the mini-tubs out back. A custom console by Gillin sits between the buckets and houses a ZL1 shifter. Like the other pertinent parts, it’s also wrapped in Relicate. Door panels were sourced from Fessler and a Sparc Industries wheel mounted on an Ididit column keeps the Camaro pointed in the right direction.

A set of Forgeline FF3C wheels, 18×9.5 front and 18×12 out back, are wrapped in Continental ExtremeContact Force tires, 275/45R18 and 335/30R18 respectively. Braking power comes from a set of Baer brakes consisting of six-piston calipers with 13-inch rotors at the corners.

Once finished, Carl was ecstatic about the one-off Camaro he had envisioned. “After owning this car for close to 30 years, the guys at Main Street Classics took my vision and made it a reality,” Carl excitedly says. “Then the guys at Gillin Auto Interiors knocked it out of the park with their attention to detail, delivering me a car like no other.”

Grille: Factory-style RS 
Hood: Stock hood with heat exchanger vents from 1969 Camaro Skunkworks
Bumpers: Stock with shaved hardware 
Paint: Acura Kaiser Metallic
Door Handles: Ringbrothers
Headlights: Morimoto LED
Taillights: Marquez Design LED
Rear Spoiler: Kindig It Design
Custom Metal Work: Main Street Classics (Lindenhurst, NY)