*photos courtesy of Hot Rod

Anyone who’s at all familiar with the Pennsylvania drag race scene has heard the name, Bill Jenkins. In fact, our featured Barn Find comes to us from Media, Pennsylvania, just a few miles away from the hometown of the man known as “Grumpy” Jenkins, one of Camaro performance’s most cherished drag racers.

Much more than just a clean, low-mileage F-Body, our featured ’69 Z/28 was actually bought new during that year by Media local, Jim Leonard. Coincidentally, Leonard himself was a fan of Bill Jenkins’ race career during the late 1960s, and he was known to attend a lot of “Grumpy” Jenkins’ events to watch him race.

Unfortunately, Leonard has since passed, but upon buying his Camaro Z/28 in 1969, he pretty much kept the car untouched, as explained by Jim Leonard’s cousin, Gunnar Steward. “He couldn’t figure out exactly what he was going to do with it,” says Steward of his cousin’s early years of ownership. Because of this, according to Steward, Leonard put the car on blocks the first day that he owned it.

Obviously an avid lover of GM F-Bodies, Michael Lightbourn flew to Pennsylvania from El Paso, Texas to take a peek at this unique specimen of Camaro muscle. One of the first features that stood out to Lightbourn was the car’s color, Olympic Gold, “You don’t see that color very often, says Lightbourn. Apparently a Z/28 enthusiast, Jim Leonard’s other Camaro was an ’84 Z/28, one that only registers 3,200 original miles to this day. According to Kevin Otto from Otto’s Car Repair, “He bought that ’84, because it was the last year for a carburetor.” (As the top engine option. You could have order a carb-equipped Z/28 through ’87. – Ed. 

Often times, when we spot a muscle classic that’s as coveted as a 1st-Gen Z/28, we feel the urge to dissect the thing for whatever factory numbers can be found. But in the case of Leonard’s unrestored pony, both the numbers on the Holley carburetor air horn, as well as those on the car’s engine block, matched without fail.

Another thing that Michael Lightbourn had uncovered about Leonard’s F-Body, upon arriving in Media from El Paso, was that the car’s air cleaner had no decals, “Not all of the cars had decals,” says Lightbourn of the Z/28‘s history.

But what makes the car even more unique is that its original owner was more a collector than he was a gearhead. Kevin Otto recalls State Street’s days of yore, especially as it pertains to Jim Leonard and his rare Camaro, “He wasn’t the kind of guy to blast up and down State Street in the darn thing,” says Otto. In fact, Kevin goes on to explain that Leonard owned a “gorgeous C10 Chevy pickup with a 454,” showing that the man had a sense of utility.

As to the legend of Jim Leonard, he was said to be a collector of everything from coins to comic books. While enjoying these activities, Leonard was said to drive his Z/28 to the local Dairy Queen, once a Saturday night cruise-in for the Pennsylvania locals, while driving a Chevette daily to work. Leonard’s Olympic Gold Camaro currently shows 10,081 original miles on the odometer. With these kinds of numbers and a paint scheme to match, there’s no doubt that Jim Leonard’s 1st-Gen Z/28 is the last, if not one of the last, unrestored Z/28s to exist in this great of shape!

Sal Alaimo

Fanatical about everything LS and Buick Turbo-6, it goes without saying that Sal Alaimo Jr. is on it, when it comes to covering anything late-model. But his musclecar roots can be traced back to Chevelles, Skylarks and the rest of the A-Body family of GM performance!