1997 Hendrick Motorsports V6 Camaros
1997 Hendrick Motorsports Special Edition V6 Camaros made by SLP and sold by Hendrick dealerships in NC
Background
In 1997, Hendrick Motorsports Performance was located in Chapel Hill, NC, but they had several dealerships in North Carolina where you could order one of these or buy one off the lot. The Hendrick Autogroup owned eight Chevrolet dealerships at the time. The dealerships were: City Chevrolet, Rick Hendrick Chevrolet (Durham, NC), Hendrick Automall, Performance Chevrolet, Colonial Chevrolet, Superior Chevrolet, Rick Hendrick Chevrolet (Charleston, SC), and Quality Automotive. Rick Hendrick was the owner, and yes, the Rick Hendrick of NASCAR fame.
(Fun trivia: Rick Hendrick's real name is Joseph Riddick Hendrick III)
SLP installed the special Hendrick package on the cars. I have never encountered information specific to the V6 cars, but the HMS package seems to just be an appearance package.
What makes these special?
Visually, the stripes are distinct. The wheels are also distinct, because they are Firehawk wheels with a Chevy bow-tie on the center cap and presumably 16x8 inch. The cars have several Hendrick Motorsports logos on them.
this one doesn't have a Hendrick emblem on the dash, so perhaps the V6 cars did not receive a special Hendrick one
the wheels appear to be 16x8 Firehawk wheels, though the center caps are missing on this car
the stripes were on the c-pillar and spoiler on T-top cars and on the roof and spoiler on hardtop cars
the stripes on the front visually come out of the faux grills on the hood
the V6 cars have Hendrick emblems, but they are different from the Hendrick SS emblems
for comparison, here's a Hendrick SS emblem
Standard Content
Completely unknown! Please help me find information and photos for this page!
It can be assumed that the stripes and wheels were the standard content for these V6 cars, but beyond that, I can't assume.
Production Number Overview
There were (supposedly 30) HMS 3.8L V6 cars, and they could be had in various colors including red, black, and silver. Black cars had white stripes instead of black. Evident in photos... these cars also sported Firehawk wheels. These cars had unique stripes I haven't seen elsewhere.
Verifying Authenticity
I only have the VIN for one of these cars (Patrick's car: 2G1FP22K3V2159092), and via SLP's build lookup tool, it does not show up. So SLP didn't keep records on these V6 cars at all apparently. This makes it (potentially) impossible to verify a car's authenticity.
Based on the paperwork Patrick owns (and showed me), an alternate way of attempting to partially verify it is by looking at the paperwork from when the car was originally sold as a new car. The Certificate of Origin is surely the easiest piece of paperwork (see below). All of the Hendrick special edition V6 Camaros should have been sold at Hendrick-owned dealerships like Patrick's car. This will not confirm that it is a Hendrick Special Edition, but it will confirm that it "could be" one.
It's possible that a SLP build sheet was included with the cars, but Patrick is the 8th owner, so who knows where the original window sticker and other pieces of original paperwork are. I attempted to find the first owner of his car, but it appears he passed away in 2010.
Vintage Photos
These are old pictures of Hendrick SSes and V6 cars. I don't know the source of these photos, but they were taken at SLP's Charlotte location. I've cropped the photos to draw your attention to the V6 cars. Look at the Hendrick SS page for uncropped photos.
Have information I don't?
Email me at brangeta (at) gmail.com or join 4th Generation Camaro History (Firebirds as well) on Facebook and post your photos and info directly.
A picture of the stripe kit, which I assume I saved from SLP's website at some point
I saved this picture in 2010 and didn't realize this car was anything special. I just thought it was modified by the owner... oops.
Patrick's car, which has had an LS1 engine put in it.
This one was owned by thathodgegirl on Instagram. It had 135k miles on it.
tmons on ls1tech said he owns one of the red ones, I'll need to contact him...
in 2010, dallas93 stated he had a Hendrick V6 car that was silver and had Hendrick floormats. Perhaps the floormats were part of the V6 special edition package.