Nickey/Thomas 427 Camaro

How do you build a 12-second 1968 Camaro? Bill Thomas made it sound so easy: “Well, we took this 425-horse 427 engine assembly, stuffed one of our 550 hydraulic cams into it, added a few handling pieces to the suspension and clamped on a set of tube headers, and the results sort of tear your head off.”

- Drew Hardin

When Jim McFarland profiled this car for the March 1968 issue of Hot Rod magazine, Thomas was an old hand in the Camaro conversion game, having been one of the first to transplant a 427 into the ponycar soon after its 1966 introduction. And the 12.50/113.21 this Camaro turned at Irwindale Raceway was done, said McFarland, “with all the restrictive smog equipment yet devised for a Chevy still intact: belting, air pump, emission tubing and a 3911 Holley ‘smog type’ carburetor…and with 3.7:1 rear gearing, open headers, a set of Casler 8-inch cap, 28 1 /2-inch-tall soft-wall tires and 5,500-rpm shift points. Could be that this combination will turn out to be the strongest street rig you’ll have an opportunity to drive this year.”