Paying Tribute
Dave Pawley 1969 396 SS Camaro Story and photos by Cam Hutchins hen Dave Pawley of Rayleigh B.C. was 10 years old, his brother Steve’s 1969 Camaro SS 396 4-speed left an indelible impression on him. Riding around with his brother back in Ontario where he grew up, Dave always wanted to buy the car when he got old enough. That was not to be, as the car was destroyed a few years later. Pawley’s brother bought the car off a friend who at the advice of the police had given driving a break for a while. When he got his licence back he wanted to buy the car back from Steve. But he wrecked the car a short while later and sold some parts off the car and an auto wrecker hauled the carcass away. Years later, after Pawley had decided he would build a clone of his brothers car, he want back home and rattled the first and last owner’s brain about the car, and found out yes, it had really been destroyed and no chance it existed. It was a real 375-horse 396 4-speed Camaro SS. It had an M22 Muncie 4speed manual transmission and 3:73 rear end gears. It was the deluxe with console and full gauges. This car also has the factory dash mounted clock and tachometer which came with Camaros that had the console gauges. One special option on this car that deviates from his brother’s car was the rear disc brakes. For 1969 the “JL8 four-
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14 MUSCLE CAR PLUS MAGAZINE DEC/JAN 2021
wheel-disc brake option” included the big 11.75 inch Corvette rear discs to the Camaro for over $500, more than ten percent of the Camaro’s price. Pretty good markup on parts they already have on hand, but records showed they sold only about 206 of the rear disc packages out of well over 200,000 Camaros made. But it was enough to meet the Sports Car Club of America homologation requirements for the Trans-Am series, allowing the racing Z/28s to have four-wheel disc brakes. For the 1969 production run, the disc brakes for the Camaro were single pistons
