FORWARD MOTION: This Unrestored 1968 Baldwin-Motion 427 Camaro RS/SS Represents a Snapshot in Time

By unbiased automotive journalist Steve Statham

In the 1960s an full military of modest makers, dealers and tuners viewed manufacturing facility muscle automobiles as mere raw materials for the supercars they envisioned. You have listened to the names — Yenko, Nickey, Shelby, Royal, Mr. Norm and other individuals. In the northeast, Baldwin-Motion designed the cars to conquer for drag racers in the market for the fastest feasible Chevrolet.

The New York-based mostly Baldwin-Motion was a partnership between a pace shop and a Chevrolet dealership. In 1958 Joel Rosen opened his Movement Efficiency speed store in a company station in Brooklyn, later moving to Extended Island. He teamed up with close by Baldwin Chevrolet in 1967 with a plan to build Baldwin-Movement SS-427 Camaros centered close to swapping the manufacturing facility 396ci engine, the biggest out there in a Camaro, for the powerful 427/425hp V8 that was optional in the Corvette. Apart from the added power, Baldwin-Motion tackled the Camaro’s penchant for wheel hop with its “Super-Bite” suspension bundle with traction bars. There ended up numerous velocity elements alternatives offered as very well, and the autos ended up even covered below guarantee.

In 1968, Baldwin-Movement expanded the system to what it referred to as the “Fantastic Five”: 427-powered editions of the Camaro, Chevelle, Chevy II, Corvette and Biscayne. In auto magazine commercials of the working day, Baldwin-Motion assured its dyno-tuned Period III SS-427 Camaro would run 11-next quarter-mile times. The cars and trucks have been definitely track-completely ready, but Joel Rosen realized the coronary heart of their market place was the late-night time avenue racer. “Our current market was avenue cars and trucks, but, if you will, final road cars and trucks, mainly because you could get whichever you required,” Rosen informed this author in an interview for a muscle vehicle guide task.

The unrestored black 1968 Baldwin-Movement Camaro RS/SS shown right here, offered with No Reserve at the 2023 Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale Auction, has all that velocity shop components on whole screen. It is a remarkably perfectly-preserved instance of the sort of super-tuned muscle car that dominated both of those clandestine drag races and the dreams of young magazine-reading through gearheads throughout the nation.

The car or truck maintains its primary 427/425hp V8 mounted by Motion Efficiency, and however has the primary GM ingestion with Movement Functionality 3-barrel carburetor modification and an initial 3-barrel Holley carburetor, fed by a trunk-mounted electrical gas pump and topped by a Motion-mounted “Fly Eye” air cleaner.

Its M21 shut-ratio 4-pace manual transmission with a GM matching VIN stamp is teamed with a Motion-set up early-design Lakewood bellhousing with a two-piece inspection go over and a Movement-mounted unique aluminum Schaefer flywheel. Underneath, the authentic traction bars produced by LAB Device are hooked up to the first GM 4.56 posi-traction-coded rear close with stick-welded tubes by Motion Effectiveness.

The documentation is extensive on this particular Camaro. A letter from the Countrywide Corvette Restorers Modern society (NCRS) confirms its GM formal creation date as November 22, 1967, and the unique dealer as Baldwin Chevrolet. The car’s first cowl tag confirms it was a factory black/black develop. The motor has its unique broach marks and a machine code of T1117ID indicating a November 17 assembly as 425hp solid K77 indicating a November 7, 1967, casting pour with 840 square port heads and cast K27 indicating a November 2, 1967, casting pour. The automobile has its original physique panels and paint with some touch-ups, and the initial inside options a Movement-put in Sunshine tachometer and the first Hurst shifter.

So many Baldwin-Movement muscle mass vehicles ended up cut up and thrashed at the racetrack or parted out soon after a temporary vocation of road racing that encountering a authentic unrestored case in point with its unique 427/425hp GM engine and pace sections set up by Movement General performance is a legitimate locate. This Camaro’s subsequent performance won’t be a avenue race on a pre-dawn New York boulevard, but alternatively underneath the bright lights of Barrett-Jackson’s auction block, where it will delight in a distinctive style of levels of competition as bidders race to see who will take the car house. Sign-up to bid now.