Maplewood History: But Parked in a Rickety Old Garage… A Followup

Last July, I made a post about a spectacular find in one of our neighborhood garages.  If you missed that post or don’t remember it clearly, you can link to it here.

But Parked in a Rickety Old Garage

Admittedly, that post appealed most to the automobile enthusiasts among my readers.  The discovery of Noland Humphreys’ 1969 Camaro was wonderful and spectacular to us car people.  If the rest of you will just bear with me, you may find this interesting.

I thought that the Camaro story was over as far as we were concerned.  But if you reread the first post, I mentioned that I hoped the next owner of the car would get in touch to let us know what was happening.  And that is just what happened.  I received the following email last Saturday.

Hi Doug,

Thank you! You could only imagine my surprise when I was doing some research the other night, stumbled across your article and recognized my car! I had a general idea the car was from the St Louis/Maplewood area because of two stickers it still retains, a 1986 Maplewood sticker on the front windscreen and a Spirits of St Louis sticker on the rear windscreen. I assume the car has been in the area for 40-50 years at minimum, probably more and maybe even since new, however, I knew absolutely none of its backstory in the area until your article. On Wednesday evening, I randomly decided to reverse image search a poor quality 320×240 photo of the car from a previous owner, began scrolling through similar photos that Google reverse image search suggested, saw a car that looked familiar and lo and behold, found myself staring at photos of my car on your article. This has been the biggest and a key bit of information in my attempts to research the history of the car and put together a timeline.

Now, for the interesting details! I live in Perth, Western Australia, and the car is currently in a shipping container on a cargo ship heading to Perth. I’m a 29 year old first-generation Camaro/60s GM collector, I grew up around them my entire life and currently have a small collection of 6 cars including 3 first-generation Camaros. Finding the right 69 Camaro (unmodified, survivor, etc) has been a 3 year search and in August 2024 after placing a wanted post on a Facebook first-generation Camaro group (one of many wanted posts I made during the search), the previous owner reached out to me with some basic photos and information. The car was located in Oklahoma, he only just purchased it from California and it was almost entirely pulled apart to commence a restoration. When the previous owner decided his family life would take up too much time to dedicate himself to a full restoration, he thought about selling the car and my post coincided around this time – purely luck on my end. After agreeing on a price for the car, the previous owner did a basic re-assembly (enough for it to be transported) and the car was back on a truck and on its way to California again for my shipping company to handle the process of getting it to Australia. From what I’ve pieced together of the car’s timeline, it has gone from a garage in Maplewood, to ending up in California (titled in CA May 2024), to Oklahoma (titled in OK August 2024), back to California and on the way to Australia – quite the journey within a space of months for a car that I presume sat for years.

As for my plans with the car; finding an all-original 69 Camaro that is unmodified, unrestored, and a genuine survivor, is incredibly difficult these days. Because of this, when I receive the car I intend to finish the re-assembly, get the car to a safe and road-worthy condition and drive it as a truly unmodified garage find survivor 69 Camaro, making sure to preserve its original and unrestored state and all the history I’m sure the car has. I might restore the car in a few years but no immediate plans at the moment and I’ve got a project or two in the queue to finish before I’d consider it.

I’ve attached two photos of the car that were took after arriving at my shipping company in California. It’s covered in dust and partially disassembled but once it arrives in Perth I’ll get it put back to how it deserves and will update you with some fresh photos. On the article, you mentioned a few names including David Humphreys and your neighbour Paul – would you know a way to contact them so I can continue putting together the pieces on this car’s history?

PS, I’ve spent the last few evenings reading your Maplewood history articles. I have a few more to go but I’m definitely hooked at this point. I’ll be following along for new articles as they come out and hope to visit the area in 2025.

Regards,
Justin A

I stopped by Paul’s house a few times but no one was home.  I’m sure, I can contact him.  I don’t have contact info for Dave Humphreys.  If any of my readers do, kindly let him know that Justin would like to communicate.

I received the email that follows just a short while ago.  I had sent him some photos of the house and garage.

Thank you for taking those photos – this all adds to the car’s documented history and emerging story, I really appreciate it. It would be interesting to talk with Dave – I imagine the car has a storied history and the absolute gold mine would be having some old photos of the car, documentation or similar. It’s interesting to see where the car lived a large portion of its life. When I was browsing Google Street View on Edgar Avenue, I spotted the Airstream trailer in the 2012 images. I knew this must’ve been the house considering your mention of the trailer in the article. A 2022-2023 timeline for the car being removed from the garage seems about right considering what I’ve been able to piece together so far. Funnily enough, I actually saw the car advertised on Facebook marketplace in California in the first half of 2024, however it was dirty, in a shipping container and had started to be modified with a 19″ set of wheels which put me off entirely. The Oklahoma owner purchased it from California, reversed the modifications and that’s when his restoration journey started just before I purchased it.

The Camaro is a Norwood, Ohio build with the trim tag indicating it was built in the 5th week of March 1969, placing its official birth date as either the 30th or the 31st of March. I plan to order the historical shipping record for the car which will tell me the exact production date plus the selling dealership. Given what I currently know about the car, it wouldn’t surprise me to know it came from a Chevrolet dealer in the St Louis area. If Noland is the original owner, perhaps he utilised an employee discount to help purchase the car. The GM plant at St Louis was for Corvette and GM truck builds whilst first generation Camaros were built in Norwood, Ohio or Van Nuys, California.

I’ll be sure to keep you updated with some more progress and information on the car. I hope to have it landed and at home sometime in December. The previous owner has requested I send him a photo of the car with an Australian beach in the background, I’ll be sure to send that through to you too; a unique experience for the car I’m sure. I paid $35,000 USD. I’m not sure what the Oklahoma or California owners paid – I presume less. I felt this was a fair figure for a survivor base coupe that requires a little bit of work however retains some desirable options e.g. it’s got the Turbo-Hydramatic 350 3 speed automatic transmission instead of the regular 2 speed Powerglide automatic these base coupes got, it’s got the rallysport appearance package (hide-away headlights, extra exterior trim, etc) which is very desirable, it’s factory Lemans Blue exterior/Black interior which is the most popular and desirable colour on the 69s, and some other nice options e.g. a blue light AM/FM multiplex radio, centre console, pin striping, exterior style trim, etc. Whilst the 69 Camaros have seen a huge rise in price in the last few years, six figures, even fully restored, is definitely pushing it! I’m happy for you to share the purchase price.

Once again, thank you for sharing all the information and photos and I’m sure we’ll talk soon.

Regards,
Justin

Fantastic!  Thanks so much for all of the details.  It’s definitely more affordable than I would have imagined.  Keep us informed on your progress.  I’m sure many of my readers are as interested as I am.

Good luck to you, Justin.

Doug Houser     October 28, 2024

The following images were sent by Justin.  Maplewood Noland’s Camaro was in California awaiting shipping to Perth, Australia.  Amazing.