To condense this story down to a few hundred words is an injustice; it could easily be a book itself!
Zach Straits, who grew up in Ohio, discovered when he was 12 years old that he was adopted in California as an infant. His adoptive parents died when Straits was young, and while rummaging through some family paperwork after their deaths, he discovered his adoption papers.
Grandma Betty proudly shows off her Camaro. With her are husband, Bob, and son, Greg. ZACH STRAITS
Straits discovered his Grandmother’s Camaro behind the family home in Kingman, Arizona. The car was in surprisingly good condition. ZACH STRAITS
Years later, when a friend invited Straits to accompany him to California on a business trip, he gladly accepted, thinking that it might be an opportunity to investigate his family roots. While there, he began to investigate the whereabouts of his birth mother by researching at both the LA Public Library and the Mormon Library. And through his exhaustive work, he determined his mother’s full name through LA County marriage records.
Straits and his wife, Brenda, have been enjoying the Camaro, displaying it as-is at shows until they dive into a full-blown restoration. ZACH STRAITS
To cut a long and wonderful story short, Straits also discovered he had a brother and a sister. After a brief Internet search, he discovered that his brother, Greg, lived in Kingman, Arizona, so he drove there, where he met his mother and half-brother. It would be several months later that he found his sister, Suzy, and her family in Oregon.
His newly found relatives began telling Straits stories about his Grandma Betty. “She was the original little old lady from Pasadena,” Straits says, who was about to discover that his grandmother loved fast cars as much as he did. “In 1967, she wanted a fast car to drive to work, so she went to Courtesy Chevrolet in Los Angeles and special-ordered a new Camaro.”
Then Straits’ mother jumped in: “It’s covered up in the backyard right now!” she said.
As a certified barn-finder, sweat started running down the back of Straits’ neck. He ran outside, lifted the cover, and discovered it was an SS/RS with automatic, bench seat, air conditioning, tinted windows, and a 350 with 295 horsepower.
“In the desert, it was hard to tell that the valve covers and air cleaner were chrome because of all the dust,” he says. He also discovered a couple of speeding tickets from the same cop in the same month and was told that Grandma Betty regularly “caught air” over LA railroad tracks. It had been parked since 1984.
Sadly, Straits’ mother passed away from cancer, but the children promised her the Camaro would stay in the family and in original condition. Together, the family decided that Straits, who has performed several body-off, nut-and-bolt restorations, would eventually restore the car and enjoy it for a period of time. Until then, though, he’s enjoying the Camaro as-is.
“She’s already been a big hit at local car shows in its desert-find condition,” he says. It was also decided that since neither he nor his brother, Greg, have children, he’d eventually send the car to his sister Suzy’s family in Oregon for her children to enjoy.