A genuine piece of 1980s road racing history is heading to Mecum’s Glendale, Arizona auction on March 20, 2026: a 1983 Chevrolet Camaro campaigned by Don Yenko in the IMSA Kelly America Challenge, one of the rare examples of this era’s purpose-built race Camaros to ever reach public sale.
A Camaro in Name Only
It wears the silhouette of a third-generation Camaro, the body style Chevrolet introduced in 1982, but that’s about where the resemblance to a production car ends. Built by Dillon Enterprises of Indiana, this is a purpose-built tube-chassis race car underneath, powered by a custom 310-cubic-inch V8 rather than anything you could order from a Chevy dealer. In line with 1983 IMSA regulations, it also runs a dry sump oiling system and a quick-change rear end geared at 3.55, the kind of hardware that separates a real racing chassis from a showroom coupe wearing a race livery.
On track, it delivered results worth remembering: a second-place finish at Pocono and a third at Lime Rock during the 1983 season, with Yenko sharing driving duties alongside Jerry and Chris Thompson.
Decades in Storage, Still Wearing Its Original Livery
The Camaro went into storage in 1987 and stayed out of public view until 2005, which helps explain why it still wears its original 1983 race livery, black and orange striping over a white body, number 11 roundels, and period-correct sponsor decals intact. The engine has since been rebuilt and race-prepped by Joe Wambolt, and the current owner reports compression and leak-down tests have confirmed the car is mechanically sound and ready for competition. The Hoosier slicks currently mounted date back to 2015, so a buyer looking to actually run this car would want to budget for fresh rubber before hitting a track.
A Track Record on the Auction Block, Too
This isn’t the car’s first trip through an auction house. It last sold at Mecum Monterey in 2017 for $28,000, and it appeared again on Bring a Trailer in December 2025, where it failed to meet reserve despite a high bid of $23,011. Whether Glendale produces a different result will depend on how much weight bidders put on genuine IMSA provenance versus a car that’s spent most of the last four decades off track.
Purpose-built IMSA-spec Camaros from this era rarely come up for sale at all, which puts this car in genuinely rare territory regardless of where the final number lands. It won’t be the only piece of racing history at Glendale, either, the same event is set to feature a 1965 Shelby 289 Cobra, a 1966 427 Cobra, one of just 521 Shelby GT350s built in 1965, and several first-generation Camaros crossing the block alongside it.
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