This is perhaps the car from the Golden Era of the Trans Am Series. There’s a good write up here if you want to learn more about the details of Trans Am racing but really all you need to know is that SCCA Trans Am was the 1960’s version of what NASCAR is today– Huge. “Win on Sunday, sell on Monday” was the common theme that kept most American car manufacturers racing on the weekends. Ford and Shelby Mustangs, Boss 302’s, AMC Javelin’s and Mercury Cougars battled Camaro’s like this one through out the late 60’s and into the early 1970’s. Because the cars were still largely based on production models, privateers could build cars and race head-to-head against factory cars; this made for some of the best sportscar racing in the history of the US. What we have here is one of the “privateer” cars, run by Team Penske, sponsored by Sunoco and driven by Mark Donohue (cool first hand stories about Mark here) to win the Trans Am Series Championship in 1969.

Mark Donohue was largely dominate during the late 60’s and into 1970 so any car he drove will be priced at a premium. This Camaro, claimed to be the Championship winner will obviously command a premium above most any other Trans Am participant. But, this car is pretty well known through out the vintage community and we’ve seen it run at events in the past. You can be guaranteed it’s eligibility at any vintage event you’d like to run from the Goodwood Festival to the Monterey Historics. We’d love to see this historic car continue to run vintage events in the US (or abroad) so people can see it being slid around the track in the environment that made it famous.

Undoubtedly, this car is expensive but it’s got the history to back up the price tag. You can find this winner at Canepa Design in Scotts Valley, CA. Canepa is a very well known vintage race shop on the West Coast; as always we advise getting a second opinion on a purchase of this type. If you need someone to look at this car, shoot us a note at mail@twoseatsorless.com and we can recommend you to someone who knows these cars very well.