Third Time's The Charm

A $15,000, 10-second, on-the-motor, small-block

Story and Photos by Ro McGonegal

           Vinnie Saviano tells it, so freakin’ happy he can barely stand still. Without warning, something that has consumed him for all of his adult years is actually happening as the words come out of him.

            ”This has been a dream of mine especially being a dedicated car magazine reader for the last 30 years (he’s 39), so I feel that it’s a real honor to finally be in Muscle Rides. When I was about 12, I used to ride around on my bike looking at cars. I found a ’69 Super Sport parked by the side of a gas station. I would sit on my bike and just stare at it and drool, dreaming of the day that I could have my own.

            “That day did arrive in 1988. I was 21. My brother showed me a classified ad for a ’69 Super Sport. When I pulled up and saw it, I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was the very same car I’d slobbered over!  It was basically stock. It had a few dents and some rust, but it was very solid. I became the third owner.  At the time, I was heavily into drag racing and I was obsessed with the movie ‘American Graffiti.’ I wanted to be John Milner.

            “That’s when the work began. With help from very good friends ‘MI Mike’ Ingrossio at MI Performance (Babylon, NY), and Ronnie K. and Fred at FB Transmissions, and my brother Mike, we tore the car completely apart. We put the right combination together and I was able to control the streets of Long Island for several years.”

            That’s what young guys (and a helluva lot of old ones) crave, the speed, intensity, and the squishy-guts fact that it’s happening on a public road. Several places on the Island are perfect venues for this big-rush activity. Civilians are not a concern and sometimes the cops even look away. Nowadays, with wife (I love you, Sandy) and family responsibilities weighing as heavily as his conscience, Vinnie’s speed exhibitions are confined to the dragstrip.

            Regardless of how many ’69 Camaros we’ve met, Vinnie’s could well be the epitome. The stance is perfect. The car’s clean, simple, and does all its work strictly on the motor. If we’d put a label on Saviano’s Camaro it would be street-and-strip. Though the car appears tame, it relinquishes even the most basic creature comforts in the name of hard-core, and it ain’t no gutted lightweight, either (3,660 pounds). There’s not a shred, or scab, or open space anywhere and the back seat is still in place. What with those shades-of-the-60s Cragar S/S wheels, it vibes time warp, and without the lines of a rollcage disrupting the visual image the thing looks almost stock.