A brief introduction and background on the SPEC Series chassis line up:
With our previous focus being building high end, very detailed chassis and suspension components, we realized that there was a very large market that we were missing. With our extremely labor intensive method of building chassis, we simply could not compete with many of our competitors building square tube chassis that required a fraction of the time and cost. In order to be more competitive, we could have resorted to cheaper, overseas components but had a hard time sleeping at night knowing that we would be delivering an inferior product simply to get the price down. So, our decision was made to engineer a a new chassis line up that was targeted at an under $10,000 price point and would still use the same high quality components, detailed fabrication, strength, and ride quality of our Fast Track and REVO chassis lines. The SPEC Series was born. The SPEC Series is a budget minded chassis that still retains the Roadster Shop's principles of quality, craftsmanship, and performance. Through engineering, production based designs, and an array of modern technology the goal was accomplished.
The car:
To begin the process we wanted to start with the cars that we felt had the largest potential market and could benefit the most from a complete chassis. The 1st gen Camaro, C10 truck, 55-57 Chevy, 59-64 Impala, and 64-72 Chevelle were selected as the initial offerings. The Camaro and the C10 would be the first into development.
We set out to find the best, cleanest original cars to design off of, which proved to be more involved than we planned. The first “all original, untouched original paint, survivor” 67 Camaro from California arrived and turned out to be a complete bondo bucket. The only thing it had survived was a trip to sub-par body shop for a fast paint job and make over to look “all original” . We located another all original 69 Camaro from the south west and had it shipped in. Well, that one was all original except for the 2 quarters that were put on and the patches in the floor. Neither would do for the start of a chassis design. After a little more looking, I found an incredible 68 Camaro with killer patina hiding all the way at the back of the Good Guys show in Indianapolis. I went back to the car 15+ times trying to find the owner to make an offer on the car, but no one was ever with it. Finally as we were finishing tearing down after the show, I saw the car again with someone standing next to it. I flew out of the truck and ran to the car to discuss it with the owner. After some talking and prying, I was able to get him interested in selling the car. A few weeks later and a few phone calls back and forth, we agreed upon a price that we were both happy with and made the deal. This turned out to be the cleanest Camaro that we have ever seen. All original panels, zero rust, perfect faded satin patina and a really cool look with the nose and rocker stripes.