glava2876

Pulled the Z out yesterday and dusted it off and went for a ride. After 37 years it is still a cool ride -not the fastest, but that 4 speed brings me back to the summer of 1979

leadfoot4

I'll always have a "soft spot" in my heart for the 2nd gen F-bodies. I had a '77 Trans Am for close to 25 years, before trading it for my C-5 Corvette.

glava2876

I had a 75 Trans Am just before this Z/28 -they were about as good as you could get in the mid 70's!

Scale-Master

That has to be the cleanest 78/79 Z/28 I've ever seen this century. I think I like them more now than when they were new.




I've had a '73 for 33 years and what it lacks modern apointments it makes up for in other areas.

leadfoot4

Unfortunately, their build quality was "spotty". I never drove mine in the winter, but over time I began to have rust issues with the body. The RR quarter panel developed rust issues, then the hood, no less....

glava2876

You're right on with the build quality. I have a small factory dent in front of PS rear wheel -that is from the inside! And with the car on my lift, the rear bumper cover and lower rear quarter panels have almost no paint on them -probably what caused rust on a lot of these years.

glava2876

Nice 73! My dream Camaro was always the 70 1/2 with that short rear spoiler and the HOT LT1.
My plan from when I bought this one was to keep it clean -so no winters?

glava2876

I just noticed Webster NY. My family lived there from about 1967 -1971. I was a kid and used to watch an awesome 69 Z/28 take off from the stop sign across from my house -one of the things that started me on Camaro's and hot cars .

leadfoot4

The rust issues with the T/A, is what actually got me into my Corvette. I was going to replace the rear quarter on the T/A, as I was able to put some money aside, and a friend, who owned a "small" body shop, said that he would work on it as a "fill in job" over the winter.

I started looking for a GM quarter panel, and found out that they had been discontinued. I called EVERY GM parts depot across the country, but found that I was consistently about 3-4 weeks behind of the last one in stock being purchased. Turns out that some retired GM worker in Michigan was buying them up, looking to sell them for double the price, and make himself a killing.

I couldn't afford that, so I drove it for another couple of summers, and by that time, the hood, where the inner support frame was welded to the outer skin, was showing rust issues. I was kind of "crushed", as I said back in 1976, that I'd never sell the car. But it was becoming too much of a project for me to handle both by myself, and on a reasonable budget. Someone made me a very reasonable offer, so I let it go.......

A while later, I was reading through a book about the "F-bodies", and the author mentioned that in the late 70s, the cars got popular again, sales soared, and yes, quality suffered, as GM dashed to get as many as possible out the door.