Towards the end of the second-generation Camaro’s life, there were some interesting, if not outright cool special versions coming out, the Cheverra and the Yenko Turbo-Z coming to mind immediately. The idea of performance was starting to awaken, and though it would take years to cars to get back the performance that had been lost during the 1970s, there was still a market for a fast Camaro.

Enter Tom Nehl, a racer who was looking to fund his program to run in the 1980 IMSA Twenty-Four Hour Pepsi Challenge at Daytona International Raceway. Nehl’s plan was to be the fast and durable, and he felt that if he used a modified 1980 Camaro Z28 that he had a shot. By participating in a “Twenty-Four Hours Of Daytona Dealer Driveaway” program, the funding for the race car and program would be raised easily, and in turn the Jacksonville, Florida zone of Chevrolet dealers would get a special edition Camaro to sell. On the advice of fellow racer Bill Warner, Nehl linked up with Special Vehicle Development (SVD) and Bill Mitchell (not to be confused with the legendary GM designer) and set about creating the modified Camaros. One car was set aside for the #28 race car, and the remaining 90 or so cars were prepared as the promotional vehicles. Mitchell had already made a reputation for himself as a Camaro tuner, focused on suspension work. He would go so far as to create a new accelerator pedal that was shifted to the left for better heel/toe driving.

The preparations focused on handling and appearance and were meant to mimic the race Camaro’s setup: 350ci engines, windshield clips, rear window bars, hood pins, an SVD front spoiler with fog lights, SVD rear sway bar, Koni shocks, a Racemark steering wheel and Minilite wheels wrapped in Dunlop tires. A special stripe package, including individual numbering, was developed and the only thing that wasn’t an option was the color: Mitchell specifically insisted upon Red Orange. However, a handful of the forty-eight dealerships that participated didn’t want Red Orange Huggers. There aren’t hard numbers, but the most accepted counts are that out of the 90 cars, six were black, two were yellow, one was white, and one was blue with no stripes. And only one street Hugger Camaro had a four-speed…the rest were automatics.

At the start of the race all of the Red Orange Huggers made a parade lap, with Mitchell refusing to let the other cars participate. Nehl’s race-prepared car lasted 19 hours, but cracked a header, and during an engine shutdown to refuel, a valve was bent. The program was a success and Nehl was approached to do it again in 1981, but he refused.