2002 Nickey Bill Thomas Camaro

More than 1,000 Horsepower and 830 Ft. Pounds Torque – Twin Turbo C5R 427ci Nickey Camaro:

It was during the mellow ’50’s that the hot rodding expression, ”There’s no substitute for cubic inches” came into vogue.  In layman’s terms that meant simply the bigger the better, or the more cubic inches you had under the hood, the quicker and faster your car would be.

Bigger displacement engines usually came in luxury cars, which were not exactly popular with the performanced minded youths, of the day, so engine swapping came into it’s own.

In the 1960s, there emerged an engine swapping revolution combined with some very interesting marketing programs.  Leading the revolution was Bill Thomas Race Cars in Anaheim, California.  Bill Thomas was well known, in Chevrolet racing circles, for his Cheetah road racing cars, fuel injected sports and drag racing Chevrolets, afx drag car kits, and some rather exotic street racing machinery.  At the time, he was one of only a handful of Chevrolet racing shops that was dialed into Chevrolet Engineering.

It was people like Bill Thomas who kept Chevrolet very visable in racing at a time. when the factory claimed it was not involved, in such projects.

Enter Chevrolets all new ’67 Camaro.  It was only natural that Bill Thomas would be involved, with the first big block transplant, into the all new Camaro.

Bill Thomas formed an alliance and collaboration with Chicago based Nickey Chevrolet. They were the largest performance parts dealer in the world, at the time.

They began installing the 427 cubic inch big block into Camaros. These Camaros were offered to Nickey customers right off the showroom floor.  In fact, you could custom order your Camaro with unlimited horsepower ratings.

Nickey/Thomas would build special order Camaros with blueprinted street and/or race engines, stick or automatic transmissions, tri-power, dual quads, slicks, headers, ad infinitum. You could call the shots and they’d build it to your specs !

Virtually every automobile magazine featured an article on this all new Supercar.  Little did Bill Thomas or Nickey Chevrolet know,  that they had just ignited a Supercar Revolution.  The likes of other ”Tunners” such as Baldwin / Motion, Berger, Gibb and Yenko, soon followed.

Fast forward Thirty-five years later, Chevrolet announced that the Camaro would be discontinued. However, this was not without significant fanfare, ala the GMMG 2002 ZL-1, optionally equipped, with a 610 horsepower C5R 427.

Stefano Bimbi, working with GMMG had one of the #69 plus two prototypes, 2002 ZL1s built as a Phase III Nickey Tribute Camaro.

This project lead to the idea, to build, a limited quantity, of Nickey Continuation Camaros.

Since Nickey Chevrolet , in collaboration with Bill Thomas, was the first to transplant a 427 into an F-body, it would be fitting that They once again collaborate, on building one, of the last 427 equipped 2002 Camaro Supercars.

Bill found the concept interesting, but warned that if this concept were to gain momentum, 750 horsepower would the minimum requirement.

Bill happened to know of a great engine builder (his son Bill Thomas III) that, as part of the team, could make the concept a reality.

The goal was set, to build the ultimate street friendly, pump gas, driver Camaro.  Bill suggested ”let’s blow in it”, meaning forced induction.  After all,  Bill Thomas began turbocharging Corvairs in the early 60’s.  True to the spirit of Bill’s thinking, modifications needed to be efficient, durable and maintain the ”stealth” image, of the ultimate stock looking street sleeper.  Finally, it had to be red, since according to Bill, ”if it’s not red, it’s not a race car”.

The joint efforts of Nickey, Dean Klein (Little Detroit Collectibles), Mike Guarise (Afficionado and owner of several Bill Thomas/Nickey Supercars), and many of the best, in the industry, to include Bill Thomas III, who brings tremendous amount of experience from his father’s mentoring, as well as by being part of a elite NASCAR engine building team and building race motors all his life, John Garrison from Paul Pfaff Racing Engines, who worked in the Bill Thomas Race Cars shop in the 60’s, Mike Osucha from More Performance and Brian Ebert and Bart Wells from HiTek Motorsports, resulted in this, Bill Thomas inspired, ultimate, 1,000 plus horsepower, street sleeper.

(Just exactly how much more Horse Power? We’ll, let’s say that we are still waiting for the competition to catch up!)

The 2002 Bill Thomas equipped Nickey Camaro began life as one of 1,037 Special Edition 35th Anniversary Z4C 6-speed Camaro SS Coupes.

This 35th Aniversary Camaro was jointly titled in Bill Thomas’s name.

Special Attention was paid to retain the original equipment (Air Conditioning, Battery Location, Interior, CD Player etc.), focusing rather on the upgrading the drivetrain, suspension and brakes for power and safety.

The Bill Thomas/Nickey inspired modifications include:

C5r 427 aluminum race case engine hand built by Bill Thomas III

Custom built sheet metal intake manifold by More Performance

HiTek Motorsports modified oil pan

Evans high flow cooling system

Custom engraved Katech aluminum valve covers

Garrett upgrade T-4 twin turbochargers

Custom front mount intercooler by HiTek Motorsports

Custom twin turbo exhaust headers by HiTek Motorsports

QTP electric exhaust cut-outs

TurboSmart E-Boost controller

Carputing PMC package

Walbro dual in-tank fuel pumps

Quarter Mile Performance custom rollbar

Quarter Mile Performance chrome moly tubular K-member

Spohn tubular sub frame connectors

Spohn torque arm with driveshaft loop

BMR adjustable panhard rod

Metco/LS1 yellow powder coated billet aluminum lower control arms

HAL 12-way adjustable shocks

Moser 12 bolt, 33 spline axles, Eaton Posi, with 4.42 gears

SPEC custom 1150 HP clutch

Baer Eradispeed LITE brakes

American Racing custom CL205 17X9.5 front wheels

American Racing custom CL205 17X11 rear wheels

BF Goodrich g-Force T/A 275/40 ZR17 redline radial front tires

BF Goodrich g-Force T/A 315/35 ZR17 redline radial rear tires

Pro 5.0 shifter

RJS 5 point Twist-Loc harness

Exclusive Bill Thomas/Nickey 427 badging

This Special Camaro is included in the Nickey Registry as One of One ever built.

This Car has been sold, contact us to find similar cars if interested.

Call Danny for more info 630.377.1222

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