My 72 Camaro was featured in Swedens largest car magazine

[Swede]

This summer a dream came true when one of Bilsports (Swedens largest car magazine) reporters came up to me at a car show and asked me if I was interested in having my car featured in their magazine. A question I couldn't say no to. I got an issue last week and it looks mighty fine.

I know it's written in swedish so you guys can't understand it but you can look at the pictures.

Small picture but at least it's on the cover.


Table of contents






Magnus

[Swede]

Re: My 72 Camaro was featured in Swedens largest car magazine

[firebird19_99]

Re: My 72 Camaro was featured in Swedens largest car magazine

thats great, congrats man. Damn you took up a lot of pages in that magazine huh:tup:

[00FlowCamaro]

Re: My 72 Camaro was featured in Swedens largest car magazine

Always my favorite Camaro body style 70-73, very sharp car.

[IICODECll]

Re: My 72 Camaro was featured in Swedens largest car magazine

Translation! :)

[David8399]

Re: My 72 Camaro was featured in Swedens largest car magazine

Always my favorite Camaro body style 70-73, very sharp car.

mine too. i am planning on selling the camaro i got now and getting a truck then one of these later as my project car.

[Mighty Thor]

Re: My 72 Camaro was featured in Swedens largest car magazine

Hey that's awesome...congrats!! You got a pretty good spread there and you've used those pics you showed us before. Excellent!!!

I bet it's rare to see a swede with an American car? Last time I was there I saw a lot of Japanese cars, european, and the only American cars I saw were Ford focus and Escort.

[Swede]

Re: My 72 Camaro was featured in Swedens largest car magazine

Thanks for the kind comments guys, yes it's really a dream come true. I was very happy when they asked if I was interested. A translation will probably be possible after the weekend if I get enough tinme to do it.

Magnus

[Swede]

Re: My 72 Camaro was featured in Swedens largest car magazine

Hey that's awesome...congrats!! You got a pretty good spread there and you've used those pics you showed us before. Excellent!!!

I bet it's rare to see a swede with an American car? Last time I was there I saw a lot of Japanese cars, european, and the only American cars I saw were Ford focus and Escort.

There are acually a lot of US cars overhere, especially the 60´s and 70´s musclecars and we have several large US car shows during the summers. I think you would be surprised if you got here during the right time of the year. Here is a link to the larges car show we have http://www.bigmeet.com/

What part of Sweden did you visit?

Magnus

[cam98aro]

Re: My 72 Camaro was featured in Swedens largest car magazine

i love the back end of those cars

[Renzo]

Re: My 72 Camaro was featured in Swedens largest car magazine

I'm headed to Sweden in december (Malmo, specifically a little town called Klagerup) with my gf to see her family, maybe you can show me your car when i'm over there, they have a house in Mellbystrand so when we are up there, we're not too far!

[Swede]

Re: My 72 Camaro was featured in Swedens largest car magazine

That would be possible, send me an PM next time you are overhere and I will give you a private garage tour. During the winters they salt the roads pretty hard overhere so there are no classic US cars on the roads by then, that's why you missed them.

Magnus

[transamtom1]

Re: My 72 Camaro was featured in Swedens largest car magazine

Congrats on the front cover and feature article :)

[Swede]

Re: My 72 Camaro was featured in Swedens largest car magazine

Here is the translation of the feature. It was not easy to translate it because the reporter have used a lot of swedish slang which is pretty hard to translate so if some parts of the text sounds a little strange it's because I didn't get the translation right. The article have a X-files theme and the reporter is writing it as if the authorities are trying to cover up the fact that they have invented a time machine. It's a pretty cool story.
There are a couple of misstakes with the fact made by the reporter when he was writing the text but I have translated it right of.

The Time machine in Kallinge.
The truth is out there

Men in black. X-files. Stargate. Three of many example that uses a wide suspicious that the military have secrets that the civilian society still calls science fiction. Now the conspiracy theoretics get new fuel. Magnus Persson is an aircraft technician on the F17 Wing. He drives an RS clone in a condition like it has just arrived from the year 1972. He means that it is the result of 4.700 hours on restoring a rusted out old beater. A story only his father and pictures he himself have taken can prove.

A fully ordinary Camaro. White, option wheels and lowered suspension. That’s all.
No giant supercharger. No air suspension, no 20” wheels, no show paint with well deep finish.
It’s not original enough or in a rare enough execution to make the know it all people to start drooling.
Still, in a forest of old muscle cars Magnus Perssons RS clone is sticking out of the crowd. And that is thanks to the simple and modest way it looks. That together with a rare healthy condition.

Better than new
Placed in the right environment the car looks to have been transported through time and space, from California 1972 to Blekinge 36 years later. Figurative speaking of course. All other will of course fight against all kind of know physical laws.
- I bought the car in 2001, right after I had finished my military service, Magnus explaines. It was the cheapest one I could find and now afterwards I know that I got what I paid for.
A total restoration was never really an option, but in 2003 I was going to fix the rust in the front fenders.
- The more I took the car apart, the clearer it came to me that the car would have been better in a junkyard than in my garage, he remembers.
Unfortunately it was too late to regret it, so it was not much to do other than bite together and go thru it all and make it as carefully as possible instead.
Outwards seen there are no reasons to suspect anything abnormal by this.

Remarkable normal
Magnus are 27 years old. He recently became a father and lives in Ronneby with his wife Vanessa and his son Alexander.
He is trained as an aircraft mechanic, did his military service at the F10 Wing in Ängelholm and went further with good grades to the Air Force Academy’s technical education.
He is pleasant, polite, and correct, but not striking so. No particular differential clothing and - except from a few inches over the normal length - no typical physical distinguishing features.
No known loads, no payment remarks, never occurred in any time of civil case or criminal investigation. Not even a single speeding ticket!
His favourite food is spaghetti and minced meat sauce!
It’s such a normal and spotless past that it almost seams made up.

Domino effect
The thing that differs from the normal is the Camaro. That and that he is working on JAS 39 Gripen for a living of course.
A profession like that put high demands on the ability to feel responsibility and being careful in big and small, in every element, irrespective of how many times it has to be repeated.
That ability is also the perfect explanation to why the condition of Magnus Camaro is so thoroughly worked out.
- It started when I was going to fix up the front fenders, but when they looked good everything around it looked even worse.
Behind every rusted part there was another one hiding behind it, chassi components that barley was attached to each other and the temporary repaired pieces from a cable fire.
- In the end I came to an understanding that I couldn’t leave anything unattended. Instead I began to see the whole thing as a challenge, to restore the car to a condition better than new and to do it all by myself, despite the fact that I had never restored a car before.

4.700 hours
Engine labour, paint and upholstery are work that many choose to leave away. Not Magnus.
- I was curios and wanted to learn to do everything. My father showed me how to weld in sheet metal so I got started with that, helped me mix the paint before it was time for painting. He have helped me assembling all the larger parts, but the rest have I learned by myself, by trying and see.
During the five years the restoration ended up to take Magnus have counted the hours and it became a total of 4.700 hours on the Camaro! The car have been taken apart in all it’s pieces, every part have been restored or changed for a new one. Every bolt, washer and nut in the whole car is new!
- That is what it costs to be careful, Magnus says and laughs. If I did it all again today I would probably be able to do it in half the time or less but it is still a lot of hours.

Complete history
In the same careful way Magnus can describe the cars history, it was sold new in Buffalo, New York 1972 but was imported to Sweden as soon as 1973. Despite the fact that it has been abused for the last 20 years Magnus was still able to get his hands on the original documentation.
That includes the new vehicle warranty with the protect-o-plate that tells exactly what the car was equipped with when it was sold new. This is an example of details that usually disappears during the years as the number of owners becomes higher.
To add up the situation. A young technician on a military airbase living a fully normal life without a single registered slip.
A classic American car that looks like new and is said to be a solid restoration, but where only two people have seen it take shape.

Perfect puzzle
If a car like this had just reincardinated by surprise after five years below the radar it had not only raised eyebrows. It had rattled big!
Timely enough the whole process has been possible to follow since 2003 over the internet.
In a project thread on the Swedish Camaro Clubs homepage Magnus have been writing a detailed dairy with a detailed description on every step of the way. From the very first disassembly to the very last chrome trim assembly.
The project thread has become sort of a handbook for other Camaro owners. It also made the car one of the clubs most talked about when it was premiere shown fully finished on august 16th this year.
All the pieces of the puzzle have fallen into perfect place. All questions have been answered an easy and logic way. No thread has been left loose.
Doesn’t it feel a little too simple? Is it sure that the car hasn’t been imported with a time machine?
Did there crash a UFO in Roswell? Did NASA really land on the moon?
The truth is out there.


Caption
The first picture where the Camaro is standing in front of a JAS 39 Gripen on page 28.
The secret archive. Suddenly a Camaro get materialised in the fuel pit on the F17 Wing! Silly statement? Maybe, but do you think that the military would uncover the truth if those things happened behind the gates on an airbase? No, that’s it.

The restorationpictures on page 30.
Phoenix. Is this rusted out corpse the same car as on the pictures below? A total of 4 square meters of sheet metal was used!

The interior picture on page 30.
Smells like new. From the beginning the car hade a column shifter. Magnus have converted it to a four speed Muncie. Even the undercarriage of the seats have been sandblasted and painted.

The picture from the rear on page 30.
Restomod. The car is not restored to exact original condition, but have been modified in a time typical way.

The picture of the undercarrige on page 30 and 31.
Spotless. Magnus made a sneak show of the car last year and have been able to drive about 700 miles since that. The ones that have followed the restoration know that the finish is as good on the places where it is not seen.

The picture of the front wheel on page 31.
Home paint. Magnus painted the car himself, in the garage! Only a trained eye can see that he started in the front and became more experienced the further back he came.

The picture of the back of the door on page 31.
Illusion. New decals makes it feel like you are standing in the middle of the year 1972 and are studding a car that is coming straight from the factory.