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Jerry Jenkins’ 1969 Camaro

Jerry Jenkins calls it “The Beast,” and the name is not bravado. It’s recognition. Since the day he earned his driver’s license at fifteen, Jenkins had carried a single image in his mind: a 1969 Camaro finished in Laguna Blue. Forty-five years in telecommunications kept the lights on, but retirement finally gave him the time, and the budget, to turn that teenage vision into steel and horsepower.

Two intense years and north of eighty thousand dollars later, The Beast emerged.

The exterior is pure 1969 at first glance. Stock bumpers and grilles maintain the factory silhouette, while the Laguna Blue paint, laid down with a custom Jerry-designed hood stripe, provides the signature pop. Beneath that classic skin sits a GM 383 stroker crate engine, balanced and blueprinted by Wheeler Motorsports in Jacksonville, Florida. A Comp Cams bumpstick with .547 lift and 288 degrees of advertised duration, a custom intake, and a Holley Street Avenger 670-cfm carburetor feed the small-block. Hooker 3-inch headers flow into a full custom exhaust, while an MSD 6AL digital box and a Radiator Technologies four-row aluminum core with dual electric fans keep everything cool and ignited.

The chassis remains a stock subframe, but Jerry reinforced it himself with welded frame-connector braces, Koni front springs, Detroit Speed shocks front and rear, dropped upper and lower control arms, and a 1-inch front sway bar. Every bolt, he insists, felt his own torque wrench. American Racing 17-inch polished Rally wheels wrapped in BFGoodrich g-Force Comp-2 tires (245/45-17 front, 275/40-17 rear) for grip that matches the car’s attitude.

Inside, TMI Sport-VXR seats with black-and-blue stitching, installed by Shoupe and Son Upholstery in Ocala, anchor a cockpit finished with Dakota Digital VHX gauges, an Ididit tilt column, and a 14-inch billet wheel wrapped in black leather.

The résumé speaks for itself: six trips to the SEMA Show, Cruisin’ the Coast, Emerald Coast Cruizin’, Daytona Turkey Run, LS Fest, Barrett-Jackson, Mecum, and Shades of the Past—plus every major local Ocala gathering. Trophies follow, but Jenkins measures success differently.

“I learned that every screw, nut, and bolt has to have my finger on it to make sure it’s right,” he says. “Patience and a big checkbook help, too.”

In a hobby where cars are often trailered and pampered, The Beast is driven, hard and often, exactly as a fifteen-year-old boy once imagined it should be. After half a century, Jerry Jenkins finally has his dream Camaro. And yes, it earned its name.