I used to get every 'special edition' magazine on Camaros I could find back in the 80's, but yesterday was the first time I had ever heard of this late 2nd Gen Yenko.
I used to get every 'special edition' magazine on Camaros I could find back in the 80's, but yesterday was the first time I had ever heard of this late 2nd Gen Yenko.
i'm old enough to remember them when they were new
I remember seeing two together, one black and one white, back in the 80s. They were just in some random parking lot though, not at a dealership. The fiberglass add ons looked pretty tacky and fragile.
There's a guy just a few miles away that appears to restore the early Yenko Camaros.
AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:i'm old enough to remember them when they were new
Me too!
... But I don't! 
While I admit I don't know all that much about the Yenko Turbo Z other than they had turbos installed, I do know that the DKM Macho T/As were way cooler.
2nd Gen F Body tuner cars are so damn cool.
2Fast2Furious told me that they would snap their speedo in five seconds. That's the extent of my knowledge
Everything. I love them. Saw one in person at Carlisle around 2001-2. Them and the Macho Z...
In reply to Tony Sestito :
OMG DUDE the Macho T/A!!!!!
Uh I kinda missed this one.......at one time I was focused on Baldwin Motion Performance......
In reply to 759NRNG :
Got to meet and hang out with Joel Rosen from Motion a very long time ago because my buddy was his website guy. That was my in to meet John Moss and sit in the new at the time 5th gen concept camaro behind some velvet ropes. That silver one they took all around the country had my butt cheeks on the seat.
P....IMHO BMperf was the BOMB for straight line perf....
I need to turn in my man card. Totally aware of the first gen Yenko Camaros, Novas and Corvairs. Never heard of a second gen.
Macho T/A rings a bell.
Never heard of 2nd gen. Yenkos or a Macho T/A. The Macho T/A in my book would have been a car to laugh at back in that time. The Village People song come to mind. " I wanna be a Macho Man".
We're the 2nd gen Yenkos just a wanna be sales tactic?
In reply to Tony Sestito :
I delivered a set of wheels to a guy's house a few years ago, and he had a Macho T/A in the garage. He and his brother ran it in the One Lap of America.
Another forgotten tuner company that turned out modded 2nd Gens was a company out of New Jersey called Trans Am Specialties. They would sell you parts, tune your car, or sell you a turn-key "Bandit" Trans Am that was officially endorsed from Burt Reynolds.
These were usually 1980-81 cars that they swapped out the 301 for a built Pontiac 455. As far as I can tell, only a handful were actually built, and they spent most of their time either tuning customer cars or selling mail-order parts from their catalog. I learned about these guys when I bought my 1979 T/A, as it has a few parts from the catalog installed. They kept building the Bandit cars into the 3rd Gen, and I think they got in trouble with the EPA, which may have led to their eventual demise, but that's an assumption. I did a story a few years back on them here. There's another company called Trans Am Specialties or T/A Specialties based in Florida turning 5th Gen Camaros into Trans Ams, but they are not affiliated.
I recall Musclecar Enthusiast doing a piece on the Yenko Turbo Z. Yenko had gotten their start with Corvairs, and came back around to turbos in the '70s, tinkering with them on 4-cylinder Vegas. They then decided to apply them to a late 2nd-gen Camaro, since they were such dogs. The numbers were good for the era, nothing to right home about compared to what had come a decade before or modern cars, but they were pretty crude, as I recall. Good ol' carbureted drawthrough turbos and the like. I believe those were the last modified Chevy that Yenko turned out, and then he died a few years later in a, surprise surprise, small airplane crash.
As soon as the Macho T/A enters the chat, it’s pretty much over.
The funny part about meeting the owner of the Macho T/A was that he was a fairly young guy from (I think) Greece. He had no frame of reference for the whole macho 70s thing. He knew it was special for an old Firebird though.
He also had a 911, but seemed most enthusiastic about his G-Wagen.
I know most of the Yenkos I've seen are sticker packages from Year One.
In reply to David S. Wallens :
I find it odd (and awesome) that I own two vehicles that could be had with an option package with the word Macho in it.
1979 was a hell of a year!
In reply to Tony Sestito :
In high school, one of my friends bought a 72 Satellite Sebring four door, beautiful metallic green with a white vinyl top. It was a nice car.
He swapped in a 440, added a huge, shirt box style hood scoop, removed the vinyl top, painted the car black and added Keystones with raised white letter Macho Radial tires.
Appleseed said:I know most of the Yenkos I've seen are sticker packages from Year One.
I liked the comment I saw from a pretty big Chevy collector when asked about the Yenko he had. It was something to the effect of "I never understood the fuss over those things. It was just a cheapass, POS Camaro with a big engine."
I would grow a mullet and post photos of anyone wants to drop a nice 3rd Gen off at my house. I've always kind of wanted one.
In reply to AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) :
You know you don't have to have a terrible haircut or listen to the worst music ever recorded to own one of these. You can just buy one.
You'll need to log in to post.
