New Member from Warrensburg,MO.
Hello all!
im new here, but no stranger to “F-Bodies” had lots of them over the years.
the one that got away was the ‘67 sport coupe i bought (a barn find) my future
would be late “Father-in-law” over heard me talking To his Son (my best friend)
Talking about looking at a ‘69 Camaro a friend of mine had, he said” I know where there
is a ‘67 or ‘68 you can buy reasonably” at the time, I was pretty determined to get the ‘69,
but that never happened. One day a few months later, I decided to go see the farmer
who owned the Camaro. He had bought the car from his niece, after she put it in a ditch and punctured the oil pan and locked the engine up. The dealership wasn't going to give them a fair deal on the car, so he tucked it away in his barn. I’m guessing it had been there since ‘76, it had a pretty good size pile if pigeon crap on the roof. And it was covered in dust pretty bad.
any way’s, it was a Sport Coupe, Marina Blue, with bright blue Custom interior, console, two speed powerglide, factory power drum brakes, Air and a Console mounted clock, factory bumper guards front and rear and a white “Bumble Bee stripe” on the nose.
the farmer had all the factory paperwork, protecto plate,owners manual, etc....
he had even located another 1967 275 h.p. 327 four barrel engine for the car.
In 1983, I bought the car for $1,000.
I rebuilt the 327 and put dual exhaust on the car and drove it for two years, then sold it to my brothers room mate in college. Should have never done that.....interestingly enough,
after all these years, I made two phone calls A year or two ago, and found the guy and he still has it! I tried to buy it back, but he said he was willing the car to his “God Son”
tried every angle, that guy just wouldn't budge.
so, after the last 30+ years, Ive owned one ‘67, two ‘68s, one ‘69,
One ‘78, three 1980 Z28’s, a 1986 Iroc-Z, one ‘88 formula firebird,
one ‘91 Camaro RS, one ‘99 Camaro Convertible ( bought this one from my wife’s
boss’ late sister-in-law’s estate) when they went to take the car to the dealer to check it over, the battery was dead, and they couldn't find the keys. They told the dealer they needed to know what the car needed to get it running, of course the dealer tried to sell
them a laundry list of stuff, new tires, belts, you name it, about $1500 worth.
because they didn’t have the keys, and the battery was dead, they had no idea how many miles were on the car, the keys were gonna cost $450 to get a new lock cylinder for the steering column installed. They assumed the car had average mileage for a ‘99 Camaro convertible, the wife's boss said there was no way he was going to spend $1500+
when the average price of the car was only $3500, he asked us if we wanted it, and I
said hell yeah! It was cherry! The best part of this story, when I put the battery in the car and turned the key on, the car only had 22,000 miles on it! I paid $1200 for it!
I sold that one a few years ago, and now I have a 1996 Trans Am WS6 coupe/T-tops, six speed. I am currently building a 383 stroker for the car, hopefully, I’ll have put that in
next month. I am currently learning the whole “Tuning” thing. This will take a little while,
but I’m sure I’ll manage.
have a Great Day!
Ben Smith
