Dan Nickel of Marshall, Wisconsin, still remembers his first crush--it began the same day he got his driver's license. The object of his affection was a killer '69 Z/28, and he fantasized about driving it to and from school. Unfortunately, Dan and the Z/28 came from different worlds, and he ended up spending his high school years with a clapped-out four-wheeler instead.

Dan never forgot that first Camaro. A few years after high school he even briefly hooked up with an '80 Z28 just because it reminded him of the '69. That didn't work out, and Dan took a long break from car crafting until 1999 when everything came together. Armed with a supportive wife and some hard-earned savings, Dan found a venerable first-gen Camaro and began building his version of the ultimate street machine.

like most projects, what was supposed to be a simple paint job took on a life of its own and turned into a complete ground-up restoration. After the body was stripped to its shell, Dan enlisted Musclecar Restorations in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, to remove and replace all traces of cancerous sheetmetal caused by years of exposure to Wisconsin's salty winter roads. Six months later, a mild small-block 350 was dropped between the fenderwells, and a Richmond five-speed was mounted for comfortable cruising.Dan's still trying to decide whether to drop in a mega-horsepower crate motor or to perform a fuel-injection conversion. What started out as a high school crush has bloomed into an ongoing love affair.