Oh, how the times they are a-changin’! When we were growing up, if you saw a pretty girl with a nice car, you knew her dad, brother, grandfather, or another man in her life bought or built it for her. As we learned last month in our sister publication, you make this assumption at your own risk these days, especially with Kristin Benavides and Linda Gehring providing more proof that said preconception is changing. These two beautiful ladies have beautiful Camaros indeed! We think you’ll agree that Kristin and Linda represent the H-Town Camaro Club quite well.

Kristin Benavides’ SurvivorCamaro

 

With a name like “SurvivorCamaro” you know without asking that there must be a story behind the car. In 2009, Kristin, a sixth-grade science teacher, was diagnosed with leukemia. After a year of chemotherapy, she went into remission in 2011.

As a way of celebrating, she bought a midnight black 2010 Camaro 2SS, to use as a way to make a statement. “I beat it and so can you!” Kristin said. “The last couple of years, I created the SurvivorCamaro to represent my battle and victory over leukemia. This car is for anyone who has been touched by cancer and honors the fighters, survivors, and those taken.”

Transforming A Stock Camaro

• 
• 
• 

Day or night, SurvivorCamaro delivers the owner's message quite well.

Kristen’s whole idea behind buying the car was to spread awareness about leukemia. So, the first thing she did was start adding graphics and interior accents in Inferno Orange, the color used to recognize leukemia, just as pink is known for breast cancer awareness. As you can see, the black and orange used together are stunning.

Next came the Inferno Orange Bow Tie on the grille. That wasn’t enough, so she had orange liberally splashed in the engine bay. Halo lighting, also in a bright orange shade, came next. With many orange and black Camaros out there, hers still didn’t stand out enough, so she had a custom hood liner with a “survivor” graphic added and big light up “survivor” display added to the trunk.

Kristin wasn’t quite satisfied with the exterior of the car yet, so she had a 1LE rear diffuser installed on the rear panel. A set of Lexani Concave Series Wheels, also in black and Inferno Orange, cover a set of matching Brembo calipers. Wrapping it all up are ACS rocker panels, a splitter, and a Z/28 spoiler. She says the custom SurvivorCamaro hood liner was what ultimately gave the name/theme of her car a “face” and personality.

You Can’t Have All That Show With No Go

Kristin installed a Magnaflow exhaust system with four-inch quad tips and American Racing long tube headers on her 2010 Camaro 2SS within the first week of buying it to make it sound better. In November of 2014, she had a Magnuson TVS 2300 supercharger (running eight pounds of boost) powder-coated Inferno Orange and installed. This not only woke the engine up, it also made the car growl.

Supercharged engines can run fine with stock camshafts, but they do better with aftermarket grinds, so in order to take full advantage of the boosted engine, a Comp Cams camshaft, double valve springs, and pushrods were installed. The springs and pushrods keep the valves from floating and the stock pushrods from bending under the additional torque. Livernois dual fuel pumps currently supply the go juice to a set of Injector Dynamics 850 injectors. The 4L60E transmission received a new Circle D Specialties 3200 stall converter to help send the 545 horsepower the engine produces to the street. Kristin says that once she upgrades the fuel system, the engine will pump out a clean 600 ponies. She’s currently leaning toward a set of Walbro 460 pumps.

Keeping Power To The Ground

Kristin loves to take her car to autocross events near Houston. In fact, she told us, “I autocross every opportunity I get. I love it! The most fun I had was autocrossing on a road course at Grandsport Raceway.”

That said, despite the stock Camaro suspension being pretty good in its stock form, it had to be upgraded in order to handle the courses she runs. She also likes to drag race, but the stock suspension was insufficient for this as well. To get the car’s suspension ready for the track, Pfadt solid subframe bushings and a set of Pedders XA coilovers were installed.

SurvivorCamaro Is An Award-Winner

Kristin enters her SurvivorCamaro in shows whenever possible, however, she’s got an impressive list of awards to line the shelves in her garage, including:

• General Motors Award presented by GM’s Susan Parent
• Best in Show at Houston Camaro Club Kemah Show
• Street Achievement for Modern Muscle from Houston Autorama
• Super Chevy Show Best in Class

She also was recently featured in a video by Adam Riley in The SpeedGirls/The Art of Car video.

Watch Out For The Gray Ghost!

Linda Wehring’s husband grew up loving the “Gray Ghost” cartoon series as did many of us. So, when Linda bought her Ashen Grey Metallic 2013 Camaro 2SS/RS, he took to calling it the namesake because it was so quiet, but a Magnaflow cat-back system was installed to fix that stealthy characteristic. It still sounded too tame, so she next had a set of Kooks long tube headers installed. Although it’s not overly obnoxious, you can definitely tell when she’s in the neighborhood.

Then, it was time to start installing some under-the-hood goodies. The first of these was a cold air intake system and radiator cover from Roto-Fab. Next came a custom powder-coated catch can from Elite Engineering. Linda wasn’t looking for all-out performance, she was more interested in making it look and sound great. You can see from the pictures that she succeeded famously.

Time To Spice Up The Exterior

To kick off the cosmetic enhancements of The Gray Ghost, Linda picked up a set of Stallion wheels from Chip Foose Designs. Vengeance Graphix supplied a custom airbrushed engine cover, with Batman and The Gray Ghost on it — which is something kids and adults love when they see it at car shows. Lerick Custom Designs next added custom trunk art and installed a cool audio/visual system to make the car pop day and at night. A set of Night Owl LED halos and under glow lights complete the look Linda wanted. “The smile of the children we meet at shows makes it all worth it,” she said.

Ladies, H-Town Camaro Club is lucky to have you both as members. Keep your eye out for Kristin and Linda and their cars on the 2016 Hot Rod Power Tour.