Camaro contains lots of muscle memories

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This article was published 14/10/2022 (1224 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

During the multiple decades he worked as a long-haul trucker, Pat Sedore always dreamed about reclaiming one of the muscle cars he drove as a young man.

But now that he has traded in the open road for a managerial job in Brandon, Sedore has a little more flexibility to pursue that dream and actually made it a reality this past summer by purchasing a 1976 Chevrolet Camaro.

Talking to the Sun earlier this week, the 50-year-old said this classic second-generation Camaro shares an uncanny resemblance to the 1977 model he drove when he was around 18, which made this reunion all the more special.

“It was like a well-worn glove,” he said Wednesday, describing how it felt when he first got behind the wheel.

Growing up in Thunder Bay, Ont., Sedore owned a couple of different muscle cars outside of that 1977 Camaro, including a 1972 Dodge Challenger and a 1977 Pontiac Trans Am.

Since he started out working as a mechanic in those days, Sedore used the Trans Am as a “project car” that he could tinker with while saving the Camaro as his “daily driver.”

However, Sedore was eventually forced to sell all these vehicles in favour of a half-ton truck, which was a more practical form of transportation that also kept him off the radar of local police.

“I got caught doing 120 in a 50 zone once,” he recalls. “I got a warning from the cop, but every time I touched the ignition there was a cop there. They harassed me to the point where it wasn’t even worth having the car.”

In the years that followed, Sedore would transition from his career as a mechanic to long-haul trucking, a job that took him to every corner of Canada and the United States outside of Alaska and Hawaii.

After clocking in 3.5 million accident-free miles, Sedore decided it was time to shift gears once again and accepted a job as the terminal manager of Manitoulin Transport’s Brandon office in 2019.

While this new position isn’t as action-packed, it provides the lifelong gearhead with more free time to pursue personal projects outside of work, which came to a head when he spotted this vintage 1976 Camaro on AutoTrader.

Sedore told the Sun that this fully restored muscle car, which he later picked up in Moose Jaw, Sask., is nearly identical to the 1977 model he owned as a young man with a few key differences.

Outside of some aesthetic divergences like the body colour, wheels and leather interior, this Camaro runs on a four-speed manual transmission as opposed to the automatic transmission Sedore remembers from his past 1977 model.

However, Sedore believes this change is for the better, since using a manual transmission is second nature after all the time he spent hauling big rigs across North America.

“I drove tractor trailers for 30-plus years, so I like shifting my own gears, and to me a muscle car should have a four-speed in it,” he said.

“It’s just a preference.”

While Sedore admits that he sometimes misses his trucking days, he’s content with exploring the open road in more of a recreational capacity, which this 1976 Camaro is more than able to provide with its 350-cubic-inch engine.

Even though the vehicle is currently packed away for the winter, Sedore is already planning to attend various Prairie car shows next year, including Super Run 2023, and make the most of this raw horsepower.

However, Sedore doesn’t plan on burning rubber like he used to in his younger years and will simply use this 1976 Camaro to take it easy and enjoy all the sights and sounds Western Canada has to offer.

“I’m 50 years old now. I’ve burned my tires off. I’ve done stupid s—t. Whereas now, this is something that the wife and I can go cruising in,” he said. “There’s nothing to hurry about anymore. I bought this to drive it and enjoy it.”

Chevrolet first introduced its Camaro line in 1967 and has produced six generations of this pony/muscle car since. The Camaro was recently named Motor Trend’s 2016 Car of the Year, with a third-generation model taking home that same prize in 1982.

» kdarbyson@brandonsun.com

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