Little changed for the second year of Camaro production. Minor changes were made to the front and rear of the car. The square headlights from 1967 were replaced with rectangular ones. Side markers were added and the vents were removed from the windows. All minor stuff which says that overall the designers got it right the first time. Pony Car fans were well satisfied with the car also. In 1967, Chevrolet sold about 221,000 Camaros. In 1968, sales were over 235,000. The car was well received.
The base Camaro continued to be the car that emphasized looks over performance. The largest engine available in the base lineup was the 327ci small block. It was a good engine but it couldn’t compete with the big blocks or the high performance 302ci found in the Z/28s. The Super Sport or SS continued to be the ground pounder of the group. It was a ¼ mile machine. The Z/28 continued to display its road racing roots. While the SS may have been the power lifter the Z/28 was the tri-athlete of the group.
The Super Sport 396 package included a unique hood with twin banks of four square simulated air intakes, big SS 396 emblems and a host of other performance upgrades. Of course the heart of the car was the 396ci big block. Several versions were offered and they all offered very good performance. The straight line performance of the SS396 was very similar to the Z/28. Because the SS was much cheaper than the Z/28 GM sold about four Super Sports for every Z/28 sold.
General Motors decided to let the public have their Z/28 in 1968. It was still a bare knuckles race car. Air conditioning was not an option. Neither was an automatic transmission. Disk brakes were a mandatory option. All the suspension components were beefed up and many of the other critical drive train components were built up. This was the real thing. Not some badged up pretend muscle car.
Finally, for those not content with the SS396, one chevy dealership offered a more powerful Camaro and became a legend in the process. The ”Super Yenko Camaro” or SYC was billed as the ultimate Camaro. It’s easy to see why. The fine people at Yenko Sports in Canonsburg Pennsylvania ripped the 396ci big blocks out of about 100 Camaros and replaced it with a 427ci L72 Corvette engine producing at least 425hp. After the engine transfer, they beefed up a few other components, added a unique hood and threw in a few badges for good measure. The result was a $3800 Camaro that could do 0-60 in less than 4 seconds and the ¼ mile in the low 12 second range.
