The Camaro Club (UK)

Hi all, I don't currently own one but I'm looking for some advice on obtaining a 1st gen camaro (my ideal would be a 69 396 big block)

I've loved them as long as I can remember and I recently got the chance to drive one and that feeling has only been intensified.

My question is, what is the general availability of good condition models in the UK. And of the answer is "good luck with that", has anyone any experience buying from the states and shipping back to the UK? I've seen some good examples on US pages of varying prices so looking for some hints on what to look out for. Whilst I would love a mint condition fully restored Camaro, I'm not averse to doing some work having experience on working on cars and body work myself. The issue with that of course is availability of parts but let's not get ahead of myself.

Any advice for someone who will own one come hell or high water?

Thanks in advance.

If you want a good one in the UK you need deep pockets. I would suggest joining a forum called "rods n sods" as there are a few companies on there who specialise in finding and importing cars in the USA, I'm.not suggesting they are the best as I have no personal experience with them but I would begin there asking questions, good luck finding one, they are out there but I suspect there are also a lot of chopped about rustboxes as well

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1997 30th Anniversary SS SLP
1993 GMC Typhoon

Thanks for your input. I'll give them a go.

I've come across a few companies that will do this although I'm hesitant in trusting someone to find a "good" example and paying out and taking the risk.

Short of taking a trip out there myself to find one!!

There are a few on the American UK type Facebook sites, Colin lesson and Jamie hill spring to mind, a lot of these companies are very experienced at this by now but personally if it was me I would want to fly out and find it myself then let them deal with the shipping, I have read a few horror stories about the way cars are treated when they reach the port though which is beyond the shippers control, like parts going missing and being stripped off at the port, have you searched over here? I've seen a few nice ones come up for sale but you have to be patient

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1997 30th Anniversary SS SLP
1993 GMC Typhoon

Well that's a worry.... Ideally I would want something that needed relatively little work from a parts perspective so I then don't have to go on the hunt and import those as well.

I've seen quite a few come up for sale of varying quality and proces, some that look good but need a bit of tlc which isn't an issue but then again you can only go off what the listing is telling you. Saw a 69 396 recently for about £20k which seemed like a winner but the body work looked slightly questionable in places which makes me think there could be bigger problems hidden underneath.

Fella I know is selling a 68 firebird that is mint and kickin out 500/600hp
he will want 25k or so but this is a good car (maybe the best in the country)
if you want a camaro go to the states and get one as those on rods n sod who bring cars in sell overpriced shite.....

Sounds like that might be the best option. Will just have to find a reputable exporter that can do the leg work from there to here

Hi there, I imported my 67' 350 from the states in May 2017. I bought from a dealer in Naperville (https://www.napervilleautohaus.com/), Illinois. I saw it on the web and got a friend of mine from Chicago to check it out, he said it was in pretty good condition but needed some work on it. I paid USD$26K for it and had it imported via Ship My Car. DON"T USE SHIP MY CAR . COM!!! They are a joke, use Golden Chariots or somebody like that (plenty of them are advertised in Classic American Magazine).

It was easy enough to get the Camaro into the UK, I paid 5% VAT (around £1K), but then I got Ship My Car to do all the MOT work (as they needed MOT's at that point), UK road legalisation and all that stuff. This was OK from them but they changed the clutch and messed up all the gearbox linkage so that had to be redone by a competent mechanic.

Most of the interior work I had to do was painting and restoring the seats, installing new kick panels (absolute bar steward of a job!), put new wind shield headers on her (another absolute bar steward of a job, she's a convertible) and replaced all the interior chrome etc. Even though some of the jobs were horrible, I still enjoyed it and still have all my fingers!

Now that I have gone through the pain she is working beautifully, I am just upgrading her to power steering and replacing the gauges and steering column.

I suppose my advice is, buy in the US and either get out there to view or get a friend to look over the car if you have any in the US. I was very lucky having a mate in Chicago who also knew stuff about cars! Also, be VERY careful about who you use to import the car, the importers I used whilst OK on shipping were useless at all the other bits. Also I bought the car in May and she didn't get to the UK until August, so have no clue on why it took that long. My guess is that they were waiting for another car to share the container with as I didn't pay for a single consignment (cost's a fortune).

If you have any other questions, feel free to drop me a line.

Cheers,

Paul

Hi paul, many thanks for the guidance! I've heard mixed reviews about various shippers so I will definitely do the home work on that. I think my main concern is that I don't have any US contacts, soit would likely either be me having to fly out to see it in person or blindly trusting a company in the states or UK to source one for me. I think I'd rather do it myself but obviously it's a lot to spend to not find one whilst you're there!

Good to hear that it's relatively straight forward to do though, I'll be sure to reach out with any queries when I'm ready to pull the trigger!

Thanks again

Mike