Owner: Teddy Grubb | Location: Chicago, IL
The Era: The 1990s
The Machine: 1967 Chevy Camaro
In the custom car world, there are two ways to get a trophy. You can pay a shop to build you a winner, or you can bleed for it.
In 1990s Chicago, Teddy Grubb chose the hard way.
This ’67 Camaro wasn’t just another muscle car. It was a California survivor that found its way to the Midwest, carrying clean metal but needing a vision. What it became was a Pro Street masterpiece—a radical Small Block Chevy monster huffing nitrous, built to turn heads on the street and snap necks at the show.
The Grind: Stripped by Hand
We talk a lot about “frame-off” restorations today, but we forget what that actually meant back then. Teddy didn’t send this body out to be acid-dipped or media-blasted by a machine.
He stripped the paint with razor blades.
Let that sink in. Inch by inch. Curve by curve. Scraping away decades of history by hand until he hit bare metal. That is a level of patience that borders on obsession. That is the kind of bond you only form with a car when you have touched every single square millimeter of its skin.
Every Bolt, Every Trim
The photos tell the story of the transformation. You see it sitting in the garage in primer, a box fan running in the background—the universal sign of a blue-collar build. You see the stance getting dialed in, those massive Mickey Thompson slicks tucked deep into the quarters, promising violence.
Teddy didn’t overlook a thing.
• The Heart: A radical Small Block Chevy fed by a nitrous plate system. In the 90s, if you weren’t spraying, you weren’t trying.
• The Soul: The detail work was forensic. Every piece of stainless trim was polished or replaced. Every bolt was accounted for. The trunk wasn’t just storage; it was a custom-built audio enclosure, finished to show quality, proving this car was built to be driven and displayed.
The Payoff
The result was a car that owned the Chicago scene. It wasn’t just a “head turner”; it was a trophy magnet. But the trophies—the gold plastic and marble columns—aren’t the real story.
The real story is the nights spent in that garage. The real story is the determination to take a 30-year-old Chevy and make it better than the day it rolled off the Norwood assembly line.
Teddy Grubb didn’t just build a Camaro. He built a time capsule of dedication. And for those of us who remember the 90s street scene, this car stands as a reminder: Greatness isn’t bought. It’s built.
Wow my old baby! Man the time has flew by!