LOST YENKO/MOTION PERFORMANCE 427 1968 CAMARO IN A GARAGE

The story of this car is as interesting as the photos that represent it. It is, or we think it is, or people say it is, a 1968 427 Yenko/Motion Performance Camaro. For those who don’t know, Motion Performance was owned by Joel Rosen, a tuner with a shop near Baldwin, Chevrolet in Long Island, New York in the late 1960s. His specialty was selling heavily modified Chevrolets purchased through Baldwin Chevrolet, directly though Motion Performance and delivered to Baldwin, or later through other dealerships and delivered to Motion Performance to be modified. Rosen built what was advertised as the “fantastic five,” a group of 427-powered Chevrolets that included the Camaro, Chevy II, Biscayne, Corvette, and Chevelle. This fastest of the five was the Phase III Camaro that “was guaranteed” to run 11.50s in the quarter mile. Rosen and Motion Performance sold cars from 1967-1974. If you don’t know Yenko, read about this rare Nova.

The Camaro you see here belongs to Eric Clamage. The VIN says it is a 1968 Camaro RS/SS with a 396 V-8 that was built at the Norwood, Ohio plant in June of that year. It was a Sequoia Green four-speed car with deluxe interior and a vinyl top. The paperwork indicates it was delivered to Yenko Chevrolet where it was sold to an unknown customer. The L72 427 block currently in the car has a casting date of May, 1968, roughly one month before the date on the cowl tag. Could this be an early Yenko 427 conversion without the COPO paperwork or markings? There are experts that speak of a group of lost cars and missing VINs. This car’s VIN is on that list.  

Yenko or not, the car was driven until 1970 or 1971 when the story gets harder to follow. There is evidence that the car was sent to Joel Rosen at Motion Performance in Long Island. Looking closely, you can see the trunk mounted battery, hood and engine modifications, traction bars, and a period-correct Motion Performance sticker in the window, but no one could find the original Motion paperwork. Then car was stolen from the original owner and was gone.

The car resurfaced in 1972 in Arkansas as a parts car that had been partially stripped and was then sold to a drag racer in Tennessee who painted the front of the car black and the rear of the car white. The story goes that this was a street-racing tactic to get the police to report the wrong color vehicle if they radioed ahead. He drove the Camaro until the late 1990s when it was parked in a garage until he died. In 2017, the car reappeared when it was sold by the second owner’s daughter. The car was sold and resold before it ended up in the hands of the current owner of Motion Performance who bought the company from Joel Rosen in 2020. When he could not find any paperwork on the car, it was sold again and disappeared.

Today, the car is owned by Eric Clamage, who was looking at another Motion Performance Camaro when his his friend Ricky Smith of RSR called about the 1968 Camaro that had disappeared four years earlier. Smith had a National Corvette Restoration Society (NCRS) report created about the car, proving it was a Yenko Camaro. Smith located this car in Illinois in 2023 and Clamage brought it home. Since then, the car has sat waiting to get it road worthy so he could drive it. He is looking for clues and leads about where the car was and who owned it from 1968-1990 before it goes to RSR in Virginia later this year for a refresh.

According to Clamage and Smith, there is no doubt this is a Yenko car and it is equally as important to know if it is a Motion Performance car. Is it a Yenko/Motion car? If you have seen this car or know its original owner, contact us a [email protected], [email protected], or comment below.

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2024-09-13T17:23:02Z dg43tfdfdgfd