Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Classic Car Stories - My 1993 Camaro

One of the great cars I have been fortunate to own during my life was this 1993 Camaro. That was the first model year of the completely redesigned new car. Frankly, the previous generation of the Camaros had poor reviews and were of substandard quality. The worn out assembly lines were so bad that Chevy resorted to gluing some of the body panels together.  

In 1992 I started reading about a new model coming out that would use the LT1 Corvette motor in the high performance Z28 version. And the Z28 would cost many thousands less than the Corvette!

Well, after doing a lot of research, it took quite a few months to convince my wife that we really “needed” this vehicle! Finally, one day I got her into a dealership to look and at least sit in the car. Immediately, she complained that she couldn’t see the front of the car and would be unable to drive it. I finally wore her down. After promising her that I would put something on the front end of the car so she would know where it is, she agreed. (That’s what the antennas are for on the license plate bracket!)

Then came my wake up call!  We had stopped at a Chevrolet dealer in Green Bay, which was a much bigger city than the small town I was living in. Although our little town of Crivitz had a Chevy dealer, I believed that I could get a better price in the “big” city. I walked up to a salesman and asked what kind of a deal he could make me on a new Z28? His response was something to the effect that they were selling every Camaro that came in. I said “that's fine, I can special order one and wait”. He then said they were getting about $2000.00 over “sticker” for them!  I also said something to the effect that it would be cold day in you know where before I let anyone rip me off like that! I then turned around and headed out the door.

The next day, I went in to see our small town Chevy dealer, the salesman was also a co-owner of the dealership. Knowing that they didn’t have any new Camaros in stock, I walked up to him said hello. I just stated in a matter of fact way that I wanted to buy a new Z28 Camaro, wanted to patronize a local dealer and was willing to wait to have it built. I then stated that I knew what the invoice pricing to the dealer was and I was willing to give him $900.00 over his invoice. I about fell over when, without even hesitating, he said “sure”! If my memory serves me correctly, I think the base MSRP sticker was over $21,000. We went to his office to spec the car and about an hour later we had a deal. I ordered the T-tops with it which were a $900 option along with standard options, A/C and automatic tranny which I don't remember the prices. The total contract invoice to me with sales tax, license and shipping was right about $21,000. Elmer Banaszak of Banaszak Chevrolet retired many years ago (the dealership has been sold), but he was a good guy to buy a car from and I’ll always be grateful. He actually tried to give me another great deal a few years later on My Second Corvette, which unfortunately, he wasn't allowed to do because of GM's quota system!

As it turned out, production of the new models were behind schedule and I ended up waiting a few months for the car. They even had to halt production of the T-top cars (mine was) for a couple weeks so they could fix some issues with leaks. In fact, during this wait I had decided to transfer out to Utah with Ryder in July and the car still hadn’t been built. The dealer worked with me and we were able to change the delivery point to Salt Lake City with another dealer doing the final setup. It was a long wait, but it was worth it.

The car was a joy to drive that I could power slide through corners with ease and total confidence. No active handling suspension option needed or wanted. The 4th generation Camaros had a great powerful sound with low restriction mufflers right from the factory. The road tests that I read while researching the car claimed the LT1 Z28 had a top speed of about 156mph. After getting it broke in I took it out in the west desert on I-80 and verified it for myself. It had no problem pulling to 156 before I shut it down. Note: I did that on an open stretch of interstate that I could see a couple miles ahead with no traffic in front of me.

I did get one ticket with that car out in Nevada from a state trooper that looked like he just got out of high school. He had no sense of humor and it cost me a couple hundred dollars for about 10 over the limit. Another time on I-80 in Nevada, I was running west about 95mph and a state trooper popped up over a rise and had me dead to rights with instant-on K band radar. He had to travel out of sight to find a place to turn around through the median and came blasting up behind me. I had backed off my speed with him following for a couple miles while he probably ran my plate. But he never pulled me over and let me continue, as I breathed a big sigh of relief when he turned off.

That was a great car that I kept for 5 years and about 40000 miles. The original factory tires still had a decent amount of tread on them when I sold it to a gal for more than half of what I paid for it, about $11,000. Had a ton of fun with that Camaro, probably the most fun car for the money that I ever owned and it's a great classic car story!




Posted by at 6:37 PM

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