1969 Chevrolet Camaro

The 1969 Chevrolet Camaro beat out the 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS and the 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air in fan voting for the "best Chevy of all time."

Chevrolet said on Wednesday that the 1969 Camaro garnered 25,058 of the 124,368 votes cast, edging out the 1970 Chevelle in the final round.

Tom Peters, Chevrolet design director, gushed that the '69 Camaro is one of the "best vehicles ever" in a statement.

"The '69 Camaro has become one of the best examples of timeless design in the industry," Peters said.

Interestingly, William L. Mitchell, the boss of General Motors design during the creation of the original Camaro, did not list it as one of his favorites, according to the book A Century of Automotive Style: 100 Years of American Car Design. Mitchell listed the 1963 Chevrolet Corvette Sting Ray, the 1970.5 Chevrolet Camaro and the 1977 Chevrolet Caprice as his personal favorites.

The 1969 Camaro — the final year of the Camaro's original design — paced the Indianapolis 500. GM said that the 1969 Camaro was officially given a 290-horsepower rating, "but tested close to 500."

GM historians say "the wealth of performance equipment marked 1969 as the greatest model year for Camaros."

"Chevy produced its second Camaro Indianapolis 500 pace car and offered replicas of the white RS/SS convertible with orange stripes and orange houndstooth upholstery to the public (the actual pace car was powered by a 396, but most of the replicas had 350s)," according to the GM Heritage Center. "In addition, two radical Camaros were produced in extremely limited numbers under special Central Office Production Orders (COPO) 9560 and 9561."