In 2002, as 16 Y/O Michael “The Prodigy” approached high school graduation, with a 4.0GPA, he had decided instead of college, he would like to build cars with dad and someday take over the family business. So Project Prodigy became Michael’s college. Michael said he wanted to build a car. He also said he wanted to do a car that needed EVERYTHING! So the search for the roughest Camaro restoration project on the planet was on! It was decided it would be a 67-69 Camaro convertible. We found this 67 RS here in the local paper for $1500. Some strong negotiation netting an out the door price of $1300 and Project Prodigy was born.

Now to say Project Prodigy needed EVERYTHING is no understatement. If you look at some of the before pictures you can see the springs coming through the trunk, a large 4" channel was welded side to side and supported the front springs which had popped through the floor. There is a great sandblasting picture of the gutted skeleton of the car before it stated going back together.

There have been some Nay Sayers that simply refuse to believe a car of this caliber was built by “a kid”. And when you see the finished car, I will be the first to admit it does seem hard to believe, but they don’t call Michael “The Prodigy” for no reason. As you can see, the following pictures will prove, “the kid” did indeed build this car. Now does that mean that dad was not right over his shoulder yelling at him to do it this way or that way, of coarse? But it is Michael’s hands that did what dad’s instruction told him.

Michael has replaced every exterior body panel. He has built a full chassis from scratch utilizing C4 Corvette front and rear suspension. He built the 540CI / 750HP Fuel Injected All Aluminum big block engine. He has built the headers, exhaust, chassis, the fiberglass work, etc. Absolutely everything was done by Michael, in house with the exception of sewing the interior and the stereo install. And while did spray the paint, dad did pitch in on the final bodywork to get it laser straight. Bodywork is not something learned in 1 car!

Prodigy has multiple unique features that clearly put it at the head of the Pro Touring curve. The channeled body and perimeter frame allow Prodigy to have a super low stance and all important low center of gravity, and still maintain full suspension travel. Many cars sacrifice suspension travel, ride and handling to get the low look. Not Prodigy, it rides awesome and handles better. To keep it clean underneath, all the brake lines, fuel lines, e brake cables, etc run through the frame. The exhaust run's through the tunnel giving the car a clean belly pan underneath with no subframe or other unsightly mechanical pieces hanging under the car. The perimeter spine and backbone frame is narrowed, both front and rear, to allow super wide rubber on both ends. The frame is very rigid using custom built torque boxes, crossmember and hidden roll bar stanchions among other tricks to prevent flex.

Prodigy rides on monstrous rear 14" wide 345/25/20 Pirelli Asimmmetrico , and front 12" wide 295/30/19 Pirelli's mounted on super trick Forgeline polished SP3P 3 piece wheels. Project Prodigy has Corvette Suspension in front, along with a narrowed independent Corvette rear out back. QA1 Precision Products provided double adjustable shocks along with beautiful polished stainless rod ends for all the adjusting arms. Braking is handled by huge custom 14” 6 piston (F) / 14” 4 piston (R) radial mount Wilwood 4 wheel disc brakes using the prettiest Wilwood polished aluminum master cylinder you have ever seen. Trick aluminum Wilwood pedals activate the brake and clutch, and dress the interior nicely also.

Powered by a in house built and blueprinted 540CI Big Block Making 734 FWHP / 646TQ on the dyno, the 11:1 big block is pump gas friendly thanks to help from a Holley fuel injection set up. Lunati internals (rotating assembly, valve train) will keep the guts in the Bill Mitchell / World Products Aluminum X block on 7000RPM blast. The Lunati camshaft pushes Manley stainless steel vales in Canfield heads. Earl’s plumbing using Ano-Tuff fittings and Pro-Lite 350 hose keeps the fuel and cooling fluids flowing. A March Performance mid mount serpentine pulley set up runs the accessories including the Vintage Air Compaq A/C system. Rick’s Hot Rods supplied a very custom stainless steel fuel tank designed with reliefs in the side of the tank for the tail pipes

Shifted through a TKO 5 speed going into 3.73 rear gears, Project Prodigy is a real blast to row through the gears.

The exterior of Prodigy is Jet black with a Torch red stripe over the 1967 Yenko hood. A custom SSZL540 badge let stoplight lurkers know they best behave themselves. The Marquez taillights look great and are all many will ever see. The custom Prodigy Built roll bar is functional and attractive, and adds greatly to the exterior styling of project Prodigy. These Roll Bars are available for purchase through Prodigy Customs. Other trick exterior features include a custom Prodigy Customs built 69 Trans Am styled rear wing. These wings are available for purchase through Prodigy Customs. A Cobra style racing gas cap along with lower valance exit exhaust adds nice touches to the rear profile of the car

The interior uses four C5 Corvette buckets, front and rear. The interior is finished Torch red leather, with retro NOS red / black Houndstooth inserts. Michael built the custom mid year Corvette styled dash from scratch, and Wabbits Woodworks built all the real Carbon Fiber bezels and trim panels. Autometer supplied trick Nexus gauges that monitor Project Prodigy’s health at all times. Ididit supplied a beautiful polished aluminum steering column top with a Wabbits custom Carbon Fiber wrapped steering wheel. Electric Life provided power windows and locks. A Prodigy Customs built hard top boot with speedster style humps covers the cloth top when it is down. A custom waterfall flows from the boot into the full front to rear console.

Being a teenager, the sound system was very important to Michael. Audiobahn stepped up to the plate and set us up with a killer 6000watt sound system including two (2) 4 channel 1500 watt amps pushing eight (8) 6.5 inch component speakers along with two (2) D class 1500 watt competition amps pushing each of the two (2) 12” woofers. William, owner of Audio Specialties here in Orlando got everything hooked up, booming and did the jaw dropping install.

Project Prodigy was honored to make its debut at the 2005 SEMA show in Las Vegas as it was selected to be QA1 Precision Products feature vehicle. The SEMA show is a huge deal, and only the best of the best are invited to display. I was quite the proud daddy, as a life long motor head that dreamed of someday building a car with his sons, to see young Michael, at just 18 years old, to have his first car in SEMA. It is quite a accomplishment.

Following are many construction pictures, taken quite candidly, along with pictures of Prodigy at SEMA and other shows. Also, be sure to catch the sound clips. Again, very candid shots, but this thing has an amazing sound that has to be heard.

Thanks for looking.