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STAR TREK ’69 CAMARO—STILL A HOT CAR IN THE 24TH CENTURY

Jerry Admin

I’m not sure how many car guys are Star Trek fans because the topic never comes up during an interview about old cars and trucks.

That’s not surprising because those interviews are so focused, politics and sports never creep into the conversation either.

That doesn’t mean ‘Star Trek’ never entered the world of old iron.

Jerry Sutherland

Hardcore original series Star Trek fans will remember the 1931 Cadillac V-12 Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) drove in the episode ‘A Piece of the Action’.   

Newer Trek fans will remember the ‘65 Corvette convertible a very young next-gen Kirk  drove over a cliff in the feature movie ‘Star Trek Beyond’.  

In both cases, Captain Kirk was a terrible driver, but the featured Star Trek car came a generation later in the ‘Star Trek Voyager’ episode ‘Vis a Vis’.  Fortunately, Kirk wasn’t driving, and the car in question was a 1969 Camaro.

That car was a good choice because a ’69 Camaro is a cultural icon equal to Coca Cola or Big Mac burgers. It’s so iconic the ’69 Camaro has brand recognition that apparently extended into the 24th Century. 

There were other subplots to this episode, but this isn’t a Star Trek fan page, so I’ll stick to the ’69 Camaro.  

Lieutenant Tom Paris is the guy who worked on the Camaro through a holodeck program called the Alpha One Grease Monkey Program.  Tom is a former rebel who is now a hotshot pilot adjusting to his newfound status as a Starship officer. He described it as “Used to do what I want, but everything’s changed.  

He’s a restless guy in this new role so that’s why Tom Paris developed the ’69 Camaro program. It’s an escape pod for his freedom-loving spirit so the messy garage with the old car is a form of therapy. He calls it “time to myself” — plus he used the experience to solve mechanical problems on Voyager,  

The Camaro doesn’t make any sense to his peers on Voyager. The hologram Doctor on the ship is openly hostile to the car because he honks the horn when Tom is doing what he called “complicated surgery” – working on the carburetor.

The Doc is highly unimpressed with a classic Camaro, so he dismisses its ‘Medieval safety restraints and carbon monoxide-spewing exhaust” as “Just the thing to get you back to Sick Bay”.  Doc was clearly not a car guy.

The other non-believer in the Camaro is Tom’s girlfriend Lt. B’Ellana Torres. She’s openly hostile because Tom hasn’t been honest about why he’s not around much. When Torres finds out he’s been working on the Camaro it gets worse for Tom.

Tom starts caving right away and he calls it “a monument to the hundreds and hundreds of hours I should have should have spent with you”. Experienced car guys know that was the right thing to say, but Torres smoked out the truth in ten words.

I mean almost as much to you as a Camaro.   

Lt. B’Ellana Torres

By: Jerry Sutherland

Jerry Sutherland is a veteran automotive writer with a primary focus on the collector car hobby. His work has been published in many outlets and publications, including the National Post, Calgary Herald, Edmonton Journal, Ottawa Citizen, Montreal Gazette, Saskatoon StarPhoenix, Regina Leader-Post,  Vancouver Sun and The Truth About Cars. He is also a regular contributor to Auto Roundup Publications.

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