Tweaked iron oval-port heads, tube headers, and big Holley on a single-plane Offenhauser intake manifold were put on top and Thomas’s crew reworked the TH400 with stronger internals and a high-stall B&M converter. The Camaro was moving from grocery getter to ticket collector. Still, the yen prevailed. It returned to Thomas for its grand finale – aluminum heads, another Offy intake with two Carter AFBs, and a 4.56:1 rear. Ancillary to the nearly un-streetable driveline was a fiberglass hood and bigger sway bars for better handling. The owner later admitted that the 396 mover was “dangerously fast, almost too fast and that…it would have cost the same to swap in the 427.”

Parked in the early ‘70s when the OPEC mullahs first tightened the oil spigot, the Camaro was like a lot of golden age street machines: the owner kept it garaged and finally let it go, in 1984. Its new owner held unto it until 2000, knowing nothing about its heritage, and offered it for sale simply as a numbers-matching SS396 Camaro with spare parts. Troy Criscillis bought it and planned to restore it to stock condition at his shop in Maryville, TN.

“There was lot of interesting stuff on the car, but I didn’t know what it was until I began trying to find the first owner,” says Troy. “Luckily, at that time, Bill Thomas was still able to identify some of the cars he had worked on.”

The physical link to Anaheim included NOS Bill Thomas traction bars and valve covers with faded Bill Thomas Race Cars decals (among the parts included), plus the car’s visible modifications. After supercar locator Tim Lopata looked it over and verified certain details, it became evident that this classic was not just some speed shop swap. Troy finally tracked down the original owner and got the rest of the story, but could Thomas confirm it?