Minnesota Motorhead

When Doug Boettcher first met Doreen in October of 1988, he wasn’t shy about his hobby.

“He said, ‘Do you like street rodding?’ And I said, ‘Is that a band?’ I had no idea,” Doreen recalled.

That answer didn’t seem to bother Doug too much, since he and Doreen were married in July the next year. Two decades later, Doreen has gone to more car cruises and shows than she probably ever could have imagined. Her husband, who happens to be pretty handy with machines of the four-wheeled variety, even built her an LS2-powered ‘67 Camaro so she could get in on the action first-hand.

You see, Doug is the founder, owner and sole employee of a quaint, but busy rod shop that shares his name. Doug’s Rod Garage is actually an offshoot of his personal garage, attached to his house in Spring Lake Park. And it’s seen a lot of top notch cars – 145 of them as of last summer – during its roughly eight years of business. Doug does pretty much anything and everything you could want, from body work to interiors to engines and so on.

His slammed and sliced ‘39 Chevrolet Truck, the Minnesota Street Rod Association’s Street Rod of the Year in 2001, is his calling card that jump-started the business. Doug bought the Camaro just before customers started crowding his shop. He thought he needed a project.

“I had it seven years and it made a real nice shelf in my garage for a lot of years,” Doug said. “I used to put stuff on it. It was something that in my spare time I thought I would work on. I didn’t have that much spare time it seemed like.”

Why a Camaro? Well, it’s not because Doreen wanted one, as romantic as that might make this story. Doug did want to build her a car that was safe, dependable, but still cool. He actually grew fond of a ‘67 Camaro in high school (he graduated in ‘70) when an older classmate had one with a 396.

“It was just a cool car, I thought,” Doug said. “But I was more in to street rods. Back then I had a Model A coupe that was my first street rod. I never really thought about having a Camaro.”

Doug was working at Roger’s Rod & Customs in East Bethel when he heard about the ‘67 he would eventually buy. A guy came in to tow a junk car and asked Doug if he knew of anyone interested in an early Camaro. Doug said no, but went to check out the car, located in Columbia Heights.

It was white, rusty and powered by a wheezy 305. It had a 10-bolt rear and a four speed. Doug later found that it was originally a red on red SS with a black vinyl top, a 350 and a 12-bolt. The four-speed was the only original piece left.

He ended up driving it home, where he started the disassembly. He replaced the floor pan, trunk pan, both front fenders, the left rear quarter panel and part of the right.

Piece by piece, he chipped away at the project, between the car-show circuit in the summer and his steady flow of work projects. Doug originally wanted to make it a 383-stroker car, but a friend sent him in another direction.

“A friend of mine said, ‘You know Doug, they haven’t made a carbureted engine for 25 years,’” Doug said. “I said, ‘What’s your point?’ He said ‘you know what, you have a business, why don’t you move forward, and he had a good point.”

Doug ordered a 410hp LS2 from Turn Key Engine Supply thinking he’d learn a thing or two about the engines and boost his resume. Turned out the engine was so complete it only took five wires to hook up and it was ready to go.

With the engine in, the body work done, and the undercarriage sealed, gravel-guarded and painted, Doug brought the car to Unique Body and Paint in Blaine for the final spray. Since he had leftover paint, the color is the same GM white he used on his truck.

The Camaro also got a T5 five-speed manual transmission mated to a Hurst shifter, which Doug notched and bent slightly so it wouldn’t hit the dash in first gear. Out back is a 10-bolt (Doug said he doesn’t plan to race this car) with 3.55 gears and posi.

A Hotchkis sway bar, drop spindles and lowering springs up front and multi-leaf springs in back round out the suspension and the brakes are still a disc-drum combo, with 11-inch rotors in front. The car rides on 17-inch Billet Specialties wheels – six-inches wide up front and eight in back – wrapped in 50-series rubber.

A new dual exhaust system flows through Flowmaster 40-series mufflers. The engine came with full-length Hooker headers.

The red interior is also all new. Doug ordered it as a kit and installed it himself. The red and green gauges are new, too, and are the same size as stock.

Camaro fans will notice this car has some other subtle exterior differences from its stock brethren. The door handles are shaved, the windshield edges are rounded, the bumpers have been smoothed and pushed closer to the body and the gas cap has been replaced with a remote-controlled door.

“I decided to make it so it was a little different,” Doug said.

He did so under the hood, too, with a smooth firewall, custom engine and radiator covers and a wiper motor hidden in the fender.

Doug finished the car last spring and put on 1,400 miles by the end of July. It’ll get 22 mpg cruising at 75 mph down the freeway, he said.

Doreen hadn’t had much time behind the wheel, but planned to enjoy her new toy.

“I want him to put the first scratch on it,” she said.

If 20 years with Doug hasn’t been enough, maybe the car will help her get a handle on this whole street rodding thing.

January 8th, 2009 | Articles, Car Features, Chevrolet