1967 Camaro SS 396 L78

White 1969 Chevrolet Camaro SS convertible with Hugger Orange stripes, orange houndstooth interior, yellow flags and Official Pace Car door lettering for the 53rd Indianapolis 500, in the GM Heritage Center hall — Shown: 1969 Chevrolet Camaro SS convertible in Indianapolis 500 pace car livery, GM Heritage Collection. No photograph of this model year is on file yet. General Motors

Factory statusFactory configuration

Body stylesport-coupe

Trim / packageSuper Sport, RPO Z27

Engine396 cid L78 big-block V-8, four-barrel

Inductionfour-barrel carburetor

Published power375 hp · SAE gross

Published torque415 lb-ft · SAE gross

Forward gears4

Transmissionclose-ratio four-speed manual

Matched period road testUnknown

What this record proves

The badge is only the beginning.

The L78 configuration raises the published 396 rating to 375 horsepower and 415 lb-ft of torque, still under SAE-gross conventions and still as factory nominal values. Chevrolet’s locator pairs that engine with a close-ratio four-speed manual, separating this power team from the L35 record rather than treating SS 396 as one interchangeable specification.

L78 appears in the April 1, 1967 price schedule. The price schedule proves availability by a dated document; it does not, by itself, establish the exact public-introduction date. That unresolved boundary belongs in the story because replacing it with a repeated date would make the record look more certain than its evidence.

As with the L35 record, the inspected locator does not establish a Muncie identity for the transmission. Exact equipped weight and a matched period road test are also absent. The L78’s higher published ratings make it a different factory proposition, but they do not authorize a fabricated quarter-mile comparison against an unmatched Mustang test.