aero80
10-19-2005, 01:04 AM
The 2nd Gen Camaro was started in a time when there were plenty of other high-performance Chevrolets to choose from.
When production of them finally ended, however, the last of the second gens were the last of their kind in a bigger way than just Camaros. They were the last of the American Supercars of the Heroic Age of American Heavy Metal. They stood alone on the field, warriors undefeated, still worthy and battle-capable. At the time, however, this was largely unrecognized.
I put mine on a high-speed tour of Riverside Raceway on a certain mid-week day in 1978. Although my still brand-new '77-1/2 Z28 was a disco-era sticker car, it was also a very competently chassis'd vehicle, and with minor undercar mods plus a gennie ZL-1 aluminum 427 under the hood and hooked to the stock Super T-10, my solo open header laps on the world-famous race course had people on the rails, and they were pointng .....
Hey! That's one of those new Z28s! Look at that thing go! Wow! That's amazing!
The half-year '77 Z could be drifted with precision and it would respond instantly to changes in steering and throttle. I could fly the car on the chassis at the limit- 10/10ths and never worry. Coming out of turn 9 in a drift the car would lunge forward with aluminum torque and power. It would shift at 7500 rpm into fourth across the line in spectacular form right in front of everybody, headers screaming and the word Camaro on the fender reminding everyone, in clear an certain terms, that american breeding and bloodline matters.....
And, all the while at the same time, being unloaded in the pits was the entire field of original IROC race Camaros, the last 2nd gen ones, straight off the transporters and being prepped for the race. After the laps in my car, I filmed the unloading and prep work of the Penske Camaros.
That day was the disco-era Camaro's time to flex and go to the mat and let it all hang out and give a display of thoroughbred muscle and competence as the sole survivor of the greatest machines of the american golden age, and do so right in the faces of automotive reporters and magazine writers, many of whom I later saw looking very, very carefully at my car, as it sat in the pit area, the king of both track and road. When I left that day, I hooked up the headers and drove round-trip to the Grand Canyon and back, just for kicks. Race car, touring car, the combination that today we call Pro/Touring, but which back in the gritty days of the smog-era was simply called outstanding.
I challenge any LS-6 Chevelle or '70-1/2 Z28 to sing a more exciting song than my disco bumper car did that day- and it sang to an international audience who had to shut up after that whenever the name Z28 was brought up in the company of Ferraris and Porsches.
...the day everyone swallowed and quit laughing at the "new" Z28.
Long live the last of The Great Ones. Long live the 1960s american highway stars.
The next time you see a '77-'81 Camaro (or Firebird), you are looking at the sole survivor of the most exciting time in american automobiles. These cars make outstanding examples of the phrase that was always used in the best part of Chevrolet catalogs of the sixties... Special High Performance.
Here is one of the IROCs that was unloaded that day, front and rear views. What a kick-ass street car this would make. In fact, I know someone who is building a clone....for the street. I will film it at Talladega alongside a gennie Banjo Matthews survivor.
https://static1.pt-content.com/images/noimg.gif
https://static1.pt-content.com/images/noimg.gif
When production of them finally ended, however, the last of the second gens were the last of their kind in a bigger way than just Camaros. They were the last of the American Supercars of the Heroic Age of American Heavy Metal. They stood alone on the field, warriors undefeated, still worthy and battle-capable. At the time, however, this was largely unrecognized.
I put mine on a high-speed tour of Riverside Raceway on a certain mid-week day in 1978. Although my still brand-new '77-1/2 Z28 was a disco-era sticker car, it was also a very competently chassis'd vehicle, and with minor undercar mods plus a gennie ZL-1 aluminum 427 under the hood and hooked to the stock Super T-10, my solo open header laps on the world-famous race course had people on the rails, and they were pointng .....
Hey! That's one of those new Z28s! Look at that thing go! Wow! That's amazing!
The half-year '77 Z could be drifted with precision and it would respond instantly to changes in steering and throttle. I could fly the car on the chassis at the limit- 10/10ths and never worry. Coming out of turn 9 in a drift the car would lunge forward with aluminum torque and power. It would shift at 7500 rpm into fourth across the line in spectacular form right in front of everybody, headers screaming and the word Camaro on the fender reminding everyone, in clear an certain terms, that american breeding and bloodline matters.....
And, all the while at the same time, being unloaded in the pits was the entire field of original IROC race Camaros, the last 2nd gen ones, straight off the transporters and being prepped for the race. After the laps in my car, I filmed the unloading and prep work of the Penske Camaros.
That day was the disco-era Camaro's time to flex and go to the mat and let it all hang out and give a display of thoroughbred muscle and competence as the sole survivor of the greatest machines of the american golden age, and do so right in the faces of automotive reporters and magazine writers, many of whom I later saw looking very, very carefully at my car, as it sat in the pit area, the king of both track and road. When I left that day, I hooked up the headers and drove round-trip to the Grand Canyon and back, just for kicks. Race car, touring car, the combination that today we call Pro/Touring, but which back in the gritty days of the smog-era was simply called outstanding.
I challenge any LS-6 Chevelle or '70-1/2 Z28 to sing a more exciting song than my disco bumper car did that day- and it sang to an international audience who had to shut up after that whenever the name Z28 was brought up in the company of Ferraris and Porsches.
...the day everyone swallowed and quit laughing at the "new" Z28.
Long live the last of The Great Ones. Long live the 1960s american highway stars.
The next time you see a '77-'81 Camaro (or Firebird), you are looking at the sole survivor of the most exciting time in american automobiles. These cars make outstanding examples of the phrase that was always used in the best part of Chevrolet catalogs of the sixties... Special High Performance.
Here is one of the IROCs that was unloaded that day, front and rear views. What a kick-ass street car this would make. In fact, I know someone who is building a clone....for the street. I will film it at Talladega alongside a gennie Banjo Matthews survivor.
https://static1.pt-content.com/images/noimg.gif
https://static1.pt-content.com/images/noimg.gif