GREY MATTER

WHEN ONLY HALF HIS '68 CAMARO CAME BACK FROM THE BLASTERS, BEN FINK TURNED TRAGEDY INTO TRIUMPH BY BUILDING IT INTO AN AWARD-WINNING, BIG BLOCK-POWERED PRO TOL RER

- STORY IAIN KELLY PHOTOS BEN HOSKING

CLASSIC cars all have a story to tell.

Some are pampered and loved; some are raced to great success; others suffer at the hands of owners who prioritise other aspects of life. When Ben Fink bought this '68 Camaro, he soon discovered it fell into the latter category.

“I always had the urge to own an old muscle car, and making one really clean was the goal. I liked the '68 Camaro because it was different to HQs, Toranas and other models from that era that are on the roads in Australia,” Ben begins. “I imported this Camaro from St Louis in the US, but I discovered once the car was sandblasted that it had multiple dodgy repairs, rear-end crash damage, and a whole lot of hatchet marks all over.”

Not to be deterred, Ben did what any decent street machiner would do: he mucked in and bloody well fixed it. And he did it old-school, with the car on chassis stands in his garage. “When I started the build nearly five years ago, I had a baby on the way and made it a goal to have all the panelwork done before the due date, but that definitely wasn't the case,” he laughs. “I was working most nights after work in the garage, drilling out spot welds and replacing almost every panel on the car, including adding new floors, roof, full quarters, front cowl and plenum, the boot, and every bolt-on panel.”

You wouldn't go to all that trouble just to chuck a dunger engine between the chassis rails, and as the saying goes, nothing succeeds like excess. With that in mind, Ben's choice of a 582ci Chevy big-block makes a tonne of sense - and even more torque.