Known as “The Lightweight,” this 1967 Chevrolet Camaro Z28 is the car that Mark Donohue drove to victory in the 1968 Sebring Trans-Am on his way to winning the 1968 SCCA Trans- Am Championship, scoring 10 wins in 13 races, including an unprecedented string of eight consecutive wins and earning Roger Penske and Chevrolet their first Trans-Am title. The Lightweight’s career actually began the previous year after Donahue crashed the first Sunoco Camaro at the Bryar, New Hampshire, 250 Trans Am in August, crumpling the GM- supplied lightweight body panels that had just been installed on the car. While rebuilding that first Camaro, “Roger and his spy system” learned that other Trans-Am teams were acid- dipping their bodies at Lockheed Aerospace in Los Angeles, California. Penske and Donohue immediately began building The Lightweight using acid dipping to shave 400 pounds from the factory weight of 2,950. After the September 1967 Crow’s Landing Trans-Am in Modesto, California, the SCCA declared the car illegal; Penske responded forcefully that everyone knew the Fords were also dipped and that, having gone to the same expense, he would continue running the Camaro. The chastened SCCA official conceded. After closing out the 1967 season with wins at Las Vegas and Kent, Washington, in the newly completed Lightweight, Donohue began building a third Camaro for the 1968 season- opening Daytona 24 Hours, using all the hard-earned knowledge gained through 1967. Despite extensive preparation and a grueling 20-hour practice run earlier in the week, the new car suffered cracked cylinder heads in the 13th hour, dropping back to 12th overall but still finishing second in Trans-Am. To improve his odds of winning, Penske decided to send a two-car Sunoco Camaro team to Sebring for the 12 Hours endurance race. Despite being declared illegal the previous year, The Lightweight was back, now disguised as a 1968 model with an updated front grille, headlights and tail lights. It was at Sebring that Donohue employed some admirably bold chicanery, fashioning identical number roundels that could be swapped between the two cars to hide the presence of The Lightweight. First, the “heavy” Camaro was put through tech inspection, then returned to the team’s garage at the far side of the track; the numbers were changed, and the same car went through inspection again, escaping everyone’s notice. Having bypassed inspection, The Lightweight was used for qualifying, once again avoiding detection. Come race day, The Lightweight proved to be 1.5-seconds quicker per lap than the legal 3,000-pound car.
