1968 Chevrolet Camaro - The Real Deal

Had you been traveling through Laramie, Wyoming, late at night a couple of years ago, you might be relieved to learn that this car and driver actually exist. In your sleep-deprived state, you might've doubted your own eyes when a vision of a '68 Camaro miraculously appeared. Despite subfreezing temperatures, its windows were rolled all the way down, revealing a beautiful young driver. Snowflakes were falling into the car, clinging to her long hair.

She was expertly steering and slipping the clutch like an old dirt-track racer. When she turned and smiled, you slapped yourself hard and slammed on the brakes. All you knew for sure was that some shuteye was long overdue. 

That was no caffeine-induced hallucination, partner. Your dream girl was Liz Miles, widely known around the San Francisco Bay area as simply The Girl With the Camaro. Now 21, this California kid was in Wyoming in 2003-'04 attending the home campus of WyoTech. Her side windows are never rolled up, rain or shine or snow. Their super-dark tint is plainly illegal, plus this driver is always listening to her tires. "In the corners," she explains, "there's a very thin line between squealing and sliding."

After 15 months of continuous trade-schooling, Liz earned a business-management AA degree from WyoTech, plus half a dozen ASE certifications. Of more pride to her, she won the coveted Outstanding Student award for leading a class called Chassis Fabrication and High-Performance Engines. Of more than 2,500 students, fewer than two dozen were female. If anyone else drove an old ponycar to school, Liz never saw it in the lot where she parked a black-plate California Camaro every morning.

"Some of the kids did bring rusty hobby cars into shop classes, but not drivers," Liz recalls. "I drove the Camaro both winters. I couldn't imagine not seeing it every day. It'd be like leaving your baby somewhere! Also, I could work on it in class. The longest I've ever gone without driving it was the five weeks before I graduated when I was doing the bodywork and primer."

Her newfound welding and metalworking skills got plenty of practice on a 35-year-old body that turned out to be surprisingly rough beneath its orange repaint. She repaired all the panels and shaved everything that dared interrupt what she rates "the best lines of any car, ever." Body seams, marker lights, bumper bolts, and openings for the antenna, gas filler, and trunk lock disappeared. She wet-sanded it then sprayed the tricky primer. (Learn from a rookie body person's mistakes at www.milesspeed.com, her homegrown Web site.)

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