Callaway Camaro 73/93

Ogle's '93 Callaway Pace Car

Bill Ogle is a very big Chevy fan, owning multiple Camaros in particular. The 73/93, the first '93 Camaro with a Callaway SuperNatural engine (he didn't get the bodykit), a '71 Baldwin-Motion Phase III 454 Camaro, a '69 Dick Harrell COPO 427 Camaro, a stock 4th gen Camaro or two, and the very first Callaway C12 Corvette—the '97 (silver) development car.

The 73/93 started out as a 1973 Camaro that was originally purchased by Ogle for about $500 as the story goes, and it sat in storage for years and years.

Sometime in 1994, Ogle bought a totaled '93 Camaro that had only 2000 miles on it, and he got the idea to have his '73 Camaro completely modernized. He went with a company before Wade got a hold of the car, and as Wade says, the car was not built well by the other company and Wade's business had to essentially start over with it.

The car sits on a Pro Motion Race Cars tube chassis and has a 12-point roll cage. It has a 10-bolt rearend with 3.73 gearing as well as a TON of tricked out suspension components (modified Hotchkis trailing arms, a custom Panhard bar, Aldan coilover shocks in the rear, Eibach springs in the front, and an Addco heavy-duty rear anti-sway bar), and 13 inch drilled and slotted Brembo brakes in front and Baer brakes in the rear. When riding in this car, you'll forget you're in a '73 Camaro. You'll feel like you're in a '93 Camaro with an even firmer feeling ride!

The car has 17x9.5- and 17x11-inch Colorado Custom "Keystone" wheels custom made for this application with an incredible 9 inches of spacing used on the rear wheels. Something very unusual about these wheels is that the valve stems are on the inside of the wheel. You have to remove the wheels to check the air pressure!

Keeping with the 93 theme, the car has many of the '93 Camaro's parts like the firewall, steering box, the '93's air conditioning system, braking equipment such as the master cylinder, booster, and ABS. The car even has the '93's intermittent windshield wipers retained as well as the pedals being reused.

Everything was retained that Wade could get to work properly. In addition to that, an alarm was added to the car, which explains the red light above the cigarette lighter some of you might notice.

The LT1 was shipped off to Callaway to be rebuilt into one of their SuperNatural 400 engines that was later upgraded to over 500 horsepower.

"Callaway Chief Engineer Mike Zoner and company updated the LT1 with a Callies forged stroker crank, Carillo rods, Arias forged 10.5:1 pistons, a Callaway-grind Comp Cams camshaft, and a set of Air Flow Research heads. An 8-quart Hamburger oil pan sealed off the bottom end, while the top end was buttoned up with a CNC-ported Callaway LT1 induction system sporting a 58mm throttle body and a custom airbox (built at Wade's) with K&N filters. Callaway headers, [2 1/2" mandrel bent stainless tubing with HPC coating inside and out, and Borla mufflers with Borla tips] were added to expel the spent gases. All told, this puppy sends 505 screaming horses (with 454 ft-lbs of torque) through a Centerforce clutch and a Borg-Warner T56 six-speed. The final link in the drivetrain is a DynoTech composite driveshaft." --Super Chevy magazine

From the '93 Camaro, the Borg-Warner T56 was reused with Callaway's anodized aluminum shift ball and Callaway-Hurst short-throw shifter. As you can see, the car has the '93 Camaro dash, pedals, and center console. Everything works as it should since the '93 wiring harness was reused. Callaway's wood veneer kit was applied by Wade's to further tie in the Callaway theme.

The door panels are largely '93 Camaro parts added onto a custom panel to fit the '73 doors. The perforated leather insert was sent off to Callaway and embroidered by them. The most interesting modification to the '93 parts is the hollowed out area that was cut and reshaped with bondo then covered in leather to conform to the rollcage. The adhesive holding the leather on is showing some age, but this is not a workmanship flaw at all, it is simply the aging adhesive's fault as this old picture proves.

Look how perfectly the door closes against the rollcage.

Although it looks like the speakers were removed, the car actually has a custom Alpine stereo with plenty of speakers hidden around the car.

The seats are from a '94 Trans Am. The rest of the interior was custom stitched by Cooks Auto Top and Trim in Murphy, TX with Callaway's signature embroidered on the door panel. The headliner is leather as are the recovered sunvisors.

The hood has the scoop from a '96 Camaro SS copied and then molded onto it. Although the hood originally appeared to be a front breather like the '96 SS hood, it has always been cowl induction. The factory grill was at one time on the car, but "it looked fake and was [taken] off" according to Wade.

The Callaway Camaro 73/93 is one of the best custom Camaros ever created.

Many thanks to Wade from Wade's Rod & Custom for bringing the car out, allowing me to photograph it and taking me for a ride in it. The free T-shirt is also very cool as well! Give his website a visit by clicking on the button on the left towards the top of this page!

Click here if you'd like to see more photos and some videos of this car on a second page.