Rocky Robertson is the current owner of a car that has been in his family for almost its entire existence.
Its first owner was a professional football player who received the car as an award for his outstanding performance on the field in 1981.
Jim Sutherland
The Camaro had been outfitted with a custom driver seat foundation that allowed more inside room for the big man to fit in the car, but apparently it was not enough for a comfortable fit for the large athlete, so he sold it to Rocky’s stepbrother less than a year later.
Rocky’s stepbrother drove the car for several years, including one wild night when a barfight escalated to a couple of gunshot wounds in his stepbrother. Amazingly, he attempted to drive the Camaro home, lost control on a mountain road and crashed it into a tree while avoiding a cliff.
Somehow the Camaro only sustained damage to its passenger front fender and rocker panel, according to Rocky. Eventually his stepbrother blew up the engine and sold it to Rocky when he was a high school kid.
Rocky put a well-used 350 Chevy truck engine into the Camaro, and he drove it for a while until the engine’s poor condition made him plead with his parents for a replacement. He convinced them to buy a crate 350 from a Chevy dealership and was happy with the Camaro until he was momentarily distracted while driving the car and hit a curb to avoid a collision with another vehicle.
He damaged the front steering/suspension assembly on the driver’s side and found replacement parts at a local wrecker to repair the Camaro. However, Rocky was not happy with the car after the repair and decided to park it after a “year or two” on the road, in his words.
The car sat for the next 24 years until Rocky decided to reintroduce the Camaro to the road. He found a donor car with a good front clip and subframe for his ’81 Camaro and swapped out the damaged components.
The result was a car that “drove like it just rolled off the assembly line”, according to Rocky. Now the decision gets more difficult because he must choose between a complete restoration or a patina car with its entire history written on its body.
The decision is tough because Rocky has a highly optioned 41-year-old Camaro with T-tops, a stylish addition to domestic cars built during that era. A T-top 1981 Camaro complicates matters because the removable roof panels look best on restored models, but a restoration would also remove the car’s long visual history in his family when a patina panel becomes a shiny panel.
Either way, Rocky has improved his family heirloom Camaro to a very enjoyable level and can now enjoy every minute behind the wheel of his high school car.
The current situation will give Rocky plenty of time to map out his 1981 Camaro’s future while he takes a trip down memory lane in it.
Jim Sutherland
BY: Jim Sutherland
Jim Sutherland is a veteran automotive writer whose work has been published by many major print and online publications. The list includes Calgary Herald, The Truth About Cars, Red Deer Advocate, RPM Magazine, Edmonton Journal, Montreal Gazette, Windsor Star, Vancouver Province, and Post Media Wheels Section.
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