Marv’s Garage: THE Big Red Camaro

In 1987 Dan and RJ Gottlieb invented pro touring with a bright red 1969 Camaro. They had set out to build a muscle car that could best any exotic or production car on the planet, using a ’69 Camaro and powered by a Lingenfelter 540ci rat motor. Unfortunately that first car was totalled after the steering let go at 150mph on the LaCarrera Classica II road race in Mexico.

They then built a new car, which was dubbed Big Red. This next car would feature a tube frame structure to make it safe at over 200mph and handle the exotic 800hp all-aluminium, dry-sumped 540ci Donavan big-block under the steel bonnet. Remember, this is the late-1980s and this kind of hardware was more fitting for Le Mans racers!

Big Red turned up on the scene months after the first car was trashed, and went on to win 3 LaCarrera Classica events on the trot, then it donkey-stomped the competition at the second Silver State Classic. Run over a 95mi course of desert highway, the SSC is all about big speed and big nuts – 19-year-old RJ smashed it out of the park in ‘89, averaging 198mph and topping 222mph!

Big Red won again in ’90, then beat 23 exotics at Road & Track’s top speed challenge that year. And that’s the awesome thing about Big Red: the number and variety of events it has raced in.

They’ve raced it to over 253mph at land speed events, including El Mirage, Bonneville, Ohio and Texas Mile events, and placed 4th in class at the Pikes Peak hillclimb. It even had a role in a Fast and Furious movie.

This means the car has gone through different looks and has run a bunch of different big-block combos, with aspirated and blown options with the Procharged 598ci V8 making over 2000hp. They even had it burn up a couple of years back. But they didn’t quit, they just rebuilt it from the ground up.