After seeing the movie Better Off Dead in her high school years, Aleta Pay developed two big crushes - one on actor John Cusack and the other on a 1967 Chevrolet Camaro.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
It took 20 long years for Aleta to track down the car of her dreams.
Now she is the proud owner of a fully restored street machine worthy of the annual Summernats Car Festival - Australia’s biggest horsepower party.
It took years of searching, but Aleta found a ‘67 Camaro in restorable condition.
She and husband Adam made the long trip to Melbourne to pick it up and bring it home on a car trailer.
It took her two weeks to pull it apart and three years to put it back together, but it has been a labour of love.
Every panel had dents, it had the wrong bonnet, and a lot of original chrome was missing.
Aleta set about looking for all original parts for her ‘baby’ from all over the world.
She found original rally sport rims in the USA and had them sent over.
The Camaro, which is left-hand drive, was quite a car in its day.
It boasts tinted power windows, air conditioning, seat belts for every seat, and a deluxe interior.
The windows and gauges are all original and the seats have the original tin backs.
It was quite a job to get the car back to its original state.
Aleta even took out the original 47 year old hood liner, laid it on the loungeroom floor and scrubbed it with cuddly wool wash.
Adam massaged the panels back into shape and prepared them for paint.
Aleta helped where she could with the exterior while recreating the original interior.
Aleta, a Science teacher at Parkes High, took some long service leave and learnt the art of rubbing back, removing the three previous different colour ducos herself.
Every part that can be, has been re-chromed, with Aleta hand-painting the head covers on the 350 Chev (5.7 litre) motor.
No detail has been left undone.
Aleta hopes to enter her car in the Street Elite section at the Summernats, but that will be up to the preliminary judges.
Car restoration definitely runs in the Pay family.
Aleta and Adam’s boys, Ethan (13) and Hayden (10) have already purchased their own cars to restore.
Ethan is the proud owner of a HR ute and Hayden, a HQ Kingswood station wagon.
