Camaro Culture

A fined-tuned growl, hinting of speed, follows Doug Harden through Main Street as a smattering of late-afternoon walkers watch the low-slung, bright red car’s passage.

He rides with the window down, one elbow cocked. Casual flips of his wrist acknowledge the glances of passing motorists.

In his hometown, the tourist village of Nashville, Ind., the painstakingly customized 1994 Z/28 Camaro draws attention. Harden relishes retelling stories of envious teenagers and envious middle-aged men.

Even in a time when sports utility vehicles practically own the road, he believes nearly every driver feels a twitch of passion summed in one word: Camaro. The car represents youthful abandon and long summer drives.

“Even for teenagers today, the cars still have that magnetism,” says Harden, 45. “It’s hard to quantify but I think they symbolize the freedom of the open road and the individuality of having a really nice car that performs.”

Last year, Chevrolet chose to suspend Camaro production for the time being at least, leaving uncertain the future of what many drivers consider an American classic. The 2002 model is the last planned.

Harden, admittedly saddened by the decision, holds to a passion for a car that’s far more than a way to roll around town. Camaro, for him, means family gatherings, hours spent discussing restoration, and the fond memories of youth. It’s a well-deserved legacy, he says.

The Camaro was born in the fall of 1966, largely to allow Chevrolet to compete with cars such as the Ford Mustang, and it found a distinct niche in the consciousness of the American public.

Whether a six-cylinder model meant to offer sporty looks, or big-engine thoroughbreds with near-race car performance, Camaros proved a lasting branch on the automotive tree known as pony cars. Chevrolet has produced more than 4.8 million Camaros.

Designs changed, beginning with sharp contoured early models that evolved into modern aerodynamically swept shapes, but the cars stayed true to their heritage. No other car looked or performed quite like a Camaro.

It’s a legacy responsible for flaming emotions, says Bob Tripolsky, a Chevrolet spokesman in Detroit. “Camaro owners are very passionate, and the only other group I know that may be more passionate is Corvette owners.”

And while Chevrolet may resign the Camaro to automotive history, people such as Harden intend to keep the cars very much alive on both the roads and in people’s minds.

“You can’t get rid of a car that people know as well as their own grandmother’s name,” Harden says.

Self-sustaining hobby

In the early days, the Camaro joined two other American classics, the Mustang and the Corvette, for a three-car war, Harden says.

“You could choose sides, and when I grew up people were brand loyal. You were a Ford guy or a Chevy guy,” he says. “The Camaro was an American sports car in the affordable range.”

Harden’s love of beefy American-made hot rods began shortly after he started driving in 1973. He first embraced the breed’s founder, the Ford Mustang, a hand-me-down 1964 model from his brother.

Another second-hand Mustang followed, resulting in many hours spent repairing and modifying. While those hours provided Harden much of the mechanical foundation on which he now relies, they also ingrained in him a gut-level feel for the way a car should drive.

“I think you always kind of associate with your first car,” he says. “I’ve always loved the size and feel of a pony car. As a teenager, you loved having the sporty two-doors.”

Harden spent most of his time on the road, playing mandolin with a touring bluegrass band. A love of powerful hot rods continued until he and his wife, Anita, 44, had their children, Darren, now 22, and daughter Amanda, now 15, and a mini-van landed in the driveway.

About a dozen years ago, that all changed. His brother-in-law started restoring a 1969 Camaro, and Harden felt the tug. Memories of tweaking engines and powering down the roads returned.

“I enjoy being able to get into a car and just go. And there’s nothing better than having a car that feels as comfortable as an old pair of shoes and has the power for when you want to drive … briskly,” he says.

Harden bought a rusted Z/28 in nearby Bloomington. The family intended to build a house, and he considered the car a forced savings account. “When the house was built, we’d sell the car and use it to finish the house to put in all of the final touches,” he says.

He restored the car, replacing every piece of exterior sheet metal except for the top, passenger door, and hood. Eventually, an auto parts business featured the car on its catalog’s cover and used its image in several national car magazines.

Harden keeps framed copies of the ads on the walls of his garage. But that car, which he sold, was only the first. Many others followed, continuing the cycle of purchase, repair, and sell. More than a dozen Camaros passed through the garage in his neat house along a stretch of gently rolling central Indiana hills.

“It’s a self-sustaining hobby,” Harden says. “I’ve been able to buy and sell and trade up, making it pay for itself.”

While Harden can recite, in painstaking detail, specifics of nearly every Camaro model that rolled off the assembly line, he loves working on early models such as those produced in 1969.

Anyone considering buying a well-worn model from that year should expect to pay about the same as the original owner: between $2,000 and $5,000. “In any condition, you’re going to pay about what they were new,” Harden says.

Parts and bodywork, with all but the painting completed at home, might cost between $10,000 and $15,000 for a complete overhaul, Harden says. When restored, the cars can bring anywhere from $15,000 to $20,000. High-performance additions or pristine convertibles might bring $25,000 to $40,000.

Later models have their own style and perks, and each has earned fans who love nothing more than making the cars very much their own, Harden says. “Every man thinks he can restore an old house or restore an old car,” he says. “It renews you.”

A Camaro rebirth?

Harden, project supervisor for an architect, seems at ease with mid-40 life. He still plays mandolin with The Not Too Bad Bluegrass Band, pickers who limit shows to the region.

And the Camaro is more a part of it all than ever before. Harden has been president of the Central Indiana Camaro Club since 1997 and considers the 200-member group an extended family.

“My kids have grown up around it, and my son’s neck-deep in car culture,” Harden says. “I sent him to school in Ohio for high performance motor sports. He’s become known, basically, as the Camaro guy here in Indiana. He works at a speed shop in Bloomington, and he’s kinda adopted this whole thing.”

Harden didn’t create just a boys club. “My daughter thinks it’s the greatest thing, and all of her friends at school live vicariously through her,” he says. “She’ll have guys come up to her with car questions.”

Harden doesn’t look hard or far to find friends with similar passions. Camaro club members gather regularly in Indianapolis.

Bill Bauman of Logansport drives 94 miles one way for the sessions, where Harden welcomed him into the culture.

“This is like another child in his life,” Bauman says of Harden. “He takes a lot of time out of his day to go on the Internet, on the chat room, go to Indy for meetings. You’d really have to love something in your heart to spend this much time with it.”

Bauman, 24, respects Harden’s passion for Camaros and his attitude toward life. “I relate to him,” he says. “I hope that when I’m as old as him, I can have the time and the money and the passion to enjoy it the way he does.”

Tiny models of Camaros, mostly gifts from Chevrolet, line a set of shelves in Harden’s living room. As president of the car club, he helped organize Camaro car shows at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1998 and 2000. So while Chevrolet may de-emphasize the Camaro, it will live in thousands of private garages such as Harden’s.

He believes in an inevitable return, such as the resurgence of the Ford Thunderbird in 2002. A head-turning redesign brought that car back to life, and the Camaro legacy might prove sufficient to demand a rebirth, Harden says. “That’s what we’re hoping for,” he says.

Meanwhile he has plenty to keep him busy. The red 1994 model needs a new paint job. The blue 1969 always deserves a little attention. And then there’s his son’s car, a conversion to a pure racing machine. Another Camaro, undergoing a transformation back to a street-legal vehicle, rests in the driveway.

And Harden couldn’t be happier. “I’m just a gear head, and I can’t leave anything alone.”

Noble Sprayberry is a freelance writer in Brentwood, Tenn.

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