"The Lightweight"

[Transamdriver]

Anyone see an important piece of Canadian racing history at the recent Toronto Auto Show - the 1967 Sunoco Camaro known as "The Lightweight"?

Robert Barg

[Dr.Smooth]

Didn't see it, wasn't there. Was that the car acid dipped to reduce weight?

[Rob Martin]

Yes it was there. Centre-piece of the historic Camaro and Firebird display. A great looking car.

Rob Martin
GT1 Camaro #167
G70 Camaro #?

[Transamdriver]

Lots of info on this car on the Net "Sunoco Camaro the lightweight" - built in the "Gorries" downtown Chev shop by famed race car builder Doug Duncan and driven originally by Craig Fisher who are both members of the Canadian Motorsports Hall of Fame.

Gorries were well known for being involved in racing back in the sixties. When I was at Ryerson in 58 you could sometimes hear them "road test" their 57 corvette driven by London ON driver Ed Leavens.

When I raced against Francois Guertin in 71/72 I had no idea it was the ex Penske/Donohue "lightweight" - later found in a warehouse by Jack Boxstrom (RM auctions). I remember Jack racing a Volvo and collecting and restoring old race cars way before anyone else and I used to think "why is he buying old race cars that nobody wants?"

"The Lightweight" would probably trade in the vintage race world for 1 M plus.

Robert Barg

[DEK]

From a Scrutineers point of view there are lots of interesting stories about the Penske cars. Especially about numbers being moved on cars so the same heavyweight car was weighed with 2 different numbers and the light weight car usually never got weighed. And people wonder why at CASC events we eligibility tech cars as they come OFF the race track and also look at drivers' equipment fresh from the track. Want to guess how many bottles of water a driver's suit will soak up so the car with driver meets minimum weight ? Also expect that for the classes with minimum weights I'll be doing a 5 second tech on helmets. Anyone guess what I can check in 5 seconds ?????

DAVE KING