Background

Regular attendees of classic car cruise and show events may have encountered adamant believers that some first-generation Camaro Super Sports were manufactured with the 327ci engine. While the claim of a factory SS-327 Camaro is absolutely untrue - no production Camaro SS's were ever built with engines smaller than the 350 - there are understandable reasons for the spread of such rumors, since there was a factory 327ci Camaro model with technical specifications and performance very similar to that of the SS-350. Included in this model were a number of pieces of high-performance equipment that some formerly believed applied only to the SS or Z28. This is a story that has been largely forgotten - the details behind an unsung performance Camaro, the 1967-68 L30/M20.

T The L30/M20 Camaro

While the L48 package got higher billing, the less-publicized optional upgrade to the base 327 engine, RPO L30, boosted performance of the base 327ci V8 from 210HP to 275HP. When the L30 engine was combined with the M20 4-speed manual transmission option, and only in this case, Chevrolet considered the L30 engine to have crossed the line into high-performance territory; starting circa Feb 1967 three of the seven SS high-performance components were automatically added to the L30/M20: the 12-bolt rear axle, rear springs (or radius rod in 67), and rear brake proportioning valve (68 only). Two other SS components (dual exhaust and 70-series tires) could be added via inexpensive options, matching five of the seven SS-350 performance component categories and leaving L30/M20 absent only the starter motor and 11-inch clutch of the SS (neither of which would be missed).

The End Result

When N10 dual exhaust and PY5 70-series tires were added to the L30/M20 option, the result was a factory-built functional equivalent to SS350, but using the L30 engine combined with the Saginaw (rather than Muncie ) transmission. The L30/M20 with N10/PY5 add-ons could be had for a 1968 list price of $331.00, $64.00 less than the SS-350 L48/M20 and enough of a difference to pay for an additional high-performance option or two (like G80 posi-traction, or an optional rear axle gear), with change left over. Budget-minded performance enthusiasts who were in-the-know could optimize their fun by including additional options on the L30/M20 Camaro to meet their specific needs, creating a true "sleeper" performance car.

How Many...?

How many L30/M20s were built? While Chevrolet recorded how many of each individual option was built there is no traceable record of how many option combinations like the L30/M20 were sold. However, a source has provided CRG some as-yet untraceable information, supposedly from a GM production survey, that indicates that a total of 12,155 L30/M20s were built.

To supplement the above as-yet untraceable production number, we can make an educated guess of production numbers, based on V8 engine and transmission usage, from the single option production data that is available. While the estimate could be approached from several different ways, the calculation is made in the following manner: 1) Determine the percentage of L30 engines relative to total V8s engine. 2) Determine the number of M20 transmissions used in V8s (total number of M20s minus an estimate for limited number of M20 transmissions used on L6 cars - 2.7% of M20s, based on a sampling of data available to CRG). 3) Multiply the percentage of L30s by the number of V8 M20s and the result is a rough estimate of the number of L30s mounted to M20 transmissions. This two-year estimate of 11,029 is close to the unconfirmed GM production number of 12,155 L30/M20s. Depending on which number is used, L30/M20s comprised only 2.4 to 2.7% of all Camaros built in these years.

Production quantities this low put the L30/M20 on a par, quantity-wise, with models like the 1967-69 SS with the L78 396ci-375HP engine (9464 built) or the 1968-69 SS with the L34 396ci-350HP engine (4597 built), and significantly more rare than other very desirable production models like the SS-350 or the 1968-69 Z28. Given the relative lack of respect that this poorly appreciated option combination has enjoyed, these thirty+ years later it is likely that surviving original L30/M20s are counted in the hundreds rather than the thousands.