Put yourself in Don Yenko’s shoes for a moment. The heyday is behind you…the insurance groups have been a thorn for years. The idea of the Yenko Super Car has been gone for years. Replacing asphalt-ripping horsepower with a better option really hasn’t happened. The monsters went away, and even the sprightly little versions have been tamed down to be nothing more than obedient. It’s 1981. Cars suck, inflation is the only thing booming, it seems, and you’re actually considering taking another swipe at a monster machine. What would you do?
It’s easy to immediately disregard the Yenko Turbo Z as a disco mover and nothing else. It’s got the right amount of spats for it, plus the IROC/HSE-inspired nose treatment. And let’s not forget the huge performance callouts on the doors, nose cone and tail. Nobody would confuse this with a standard 175-horsepower Z28. But give Yenko his due…the Turbo Z was a legit 14-second car when the standard Camaro Z28 was maybe a 16-second player. 
For years now, a GM V8 with a turbocharger has been something to behold. Yenko did it in 1981, when turbocharger technology was still pretty much in it’s infancy. Imagine what he could’ve done to a third-gen Camaro with about five years’ worth of R&D and an intercooler for good measure. The Mustang wouldn’t have known what hit it.
Meh, Yenko, look at Pontiac selling all those turbo t/a’s and we can’t move the Camaro’s.
What if we did like Pontiac and turbo’s it then asked dealer markup because well it is a yenko.
Poor yenko, having to follow Pontiac. as the t/a,firebird outsold the bowtie .
Either one is still better than the “F” word.
Don Yenko never ‘followed’ pontiac. While PMD had an entire engineering department doing it’s 301 Turbo pontiac block. Don just had his Experiance building Turbo cars like the Corviar Stinger that ran SCCA. The 1980 Turbo was him testing the waters with a COPO. Near his Death it’s rumored by people from GM he was Talking with Chevy again about a Yenko Camaro program on the 3rd gen.
How sweet it would be to see a new Yanko camaro with all the new technology. But then again what would be left to do but put stickers on some of them.
They do have a new Yenko. It’s awesome and expensive.
I had a silver St 11 ordered. Gray graphics. GM would only do a loan on the Z/28 sticker. The Yenko option was on you. After trying to come up with the money for a better part of a year I bought a Firebird Formula. In the end the Formula was much cheaper to total as opposed to the Yenko.
Rare & Valuable do not always meet where the owner expects. The Turbo-Z is proof. Better in Concept then in real life. The Smog Regulations, GM’s Legal & Warranty programs. What could be done in a price range I will call sellable (unlike ZL1 cars)
People forget before Yenko did the v8 Super Cars he did the corvairs. Starting with Turbo charged Monza’s he made then in to Yenko Stingers. A piller mod to keep SCCA happy, then 5 levels of power. You could get a near stock Stage 1 or a Track Only (none alive now) Stage 5 that would lap a 427 Vette at Daytona. GM limited what he could do because of EPA regs, legal department regs, engineering department whoa’s.
Remember Don Yenko died returning from a meeting with GM. A thrid Gen Yenko was in the idea stage when the man died.
One will never know, yet the 89 Turbo T/A might just have been Don Yenko’s idea for the 3rd Gen sYc Camaro.
there were more than 19 built I have stock numbers for 35 and paperwork on this red car..