1969 Camaro Convertible – Modern Muscle*

I had this car built as a part of a 3 car package.  Altogether, I had a 1969 Modern Muscle Mustang, a 1971 Modern Muscle Hemi Cuda and this 1969 Modern Muscle Camaro built by Mike Staveski of Hudson, FL.  This was what I considered to be the best of the best engineering from the ground up.

What distinguishes these Modern Muscle cars is the degree to which Modem Muscle (Hudson, Florida) advances the turnkey car model. This isn’t an old musclecar updated with new underpinnings as much as it’s a true super car in musclecar clothing. Rather than just amassing a pile of top-shelf parts, for example, Modem Muscle’s Mike Staveski selected components based on their merits and integrated them to work as a complete package. The result isn’t just an incredibly powerful car; it’s a finely tuned machine that exhibits sports car features like 50/50 weight distribution, low center of gravity, and optimized roll centers and coupling – no mean feat for a midsized car with big-block power.

Though there’s nothing ordinary about the engine, a Dart-sourced 565-inch mill adorned with injection stacks tuned by Imagine Injection’s Bob Ream, it’s the engine’s placement that makes it particularly noteworthy. “It’s set back behind the front suspension by about 15 inches,” Staveski indicated. Above and beyond forsaking the firewall altogether, the move required reshaping the cowl (the filters abut the base of the windshield). “It’s to get the engine to sit low … to get the weight distribution right so this car will handle like a modern-day supercar would handle,” hence the ideal weight distribution.

In fact. “the floors on this car were completely cut out,” Staveski observed. “The only thing that’s ’69 Camaro on this car is the outside sheet metal and the dash; everything else has been made for this car: the floors, the tunnel. the firewall, the engine panels, and the trunk floor – all of that was hand-fabricated.” Similarly, the dash was moved back four inches, which created just enough space for the Vintage Air climate control. Sony X-plodhead unit, and FAST injection controller.