SolidLifters
Sep 30th, 10, 06:02 PM
I've got this Lemans Blue '69 Corvette that I bought over 20 years ago. It was sold locally by the Chevy dealer here, and special ordered for a local guy for his 16th birthday. There was only ONE problem. There was a strike at the Corvette Assembly Plant in St. Louis, and the car wasn't on the way and the birthday was just a day or two away. Fortunately the same dealer had an L89 Camaro on his showroom floor. The Camaro was bought for the birthday, and a couple of months later when the Corvette came in, the Camaro was traded back to the dealer in favor of the Corvette.
Fast foward about 20 years.................. After 6 or 8 years of searching for the Corvette, I found it locally in an unlikely place. Actually I'd seen it several times, but it had been repainted red with the factory side exhausts removed, being replaced with a midas type undercar system and even factory rocker panels, and I didn't recognize it.
After getting it bought I contacted the original owner to ask if he had any documentation on it and he provided THE ORIGINAL dealer invoice which showed the VIN number on the L89 Camaro that had been traded in. Several more years had passed by the time I found the original owner and he found the original paperwork. I had a law enforcement friend run the VIN number for the Camaro and it turned up as registered in a small rural town close to here. When contacting the registered owner, he said they'd owned the Camaro for a long time and had sold it fairly recently. This was probably over 10 yrs ago now. Anyway, he said that the buyer from up north paid him in full for the car and then it sat here for almost a year with no more contact, and then one day a rollback from up North (Detroit he thought) with a Ford Dealership logon on the side pulled up and loaded the car and off it went. He said he had no idea where.
I know it's not much to go on, but I've always wondered about that L89/L78 Camaro and what became of it. I've got the VIN number in my safety deposit box, and next time I'm at the bank I'll pull it and add it to this post if nobody has any ideas on it.
I also owned a '68 Bronze 375 Camaro SS myself that I sold about 20 yrs ago and have no idea where it went, but think I have the protecto plate on it somewhere. Last I knew it was being fairly misrepresented by a muscle car dealer in South Carolina and making the auction rounds, but've never seen it since. It was Bronze with hounds tooth interior, M21, 3.73 & dogdish hubcaps on stock wheels. It was a SUPER nice car, but had a warranty shortblock and was not the low miles original tired car the dealer was representing it to be.
Fast foward about 20 years.................. After 6 or 8 years of searching for the Corvette, I found it locally in an unlikely place. Actually I'd seen it several times, but it had been repainted red with the factory side exhausts removed, being replaced with a midas type undercar system and even factory rocker panels, and I didn't recognize it.
After getting it bought I contacted the original owner to ask if he had any documentation on it and he provided THE ORIGINAL dealer invoice which showed the VIN number on the L89 Camaro that had been traded in. Several more years had passed by the time I found the original owner and he found the original paperwork. I had a law enforcement friend run the VIN number for the Camaro and it turned up as registered in a small rural town close to here. When contacting the registered owner, he said they'd owned the Camaro for a long time and had sold it fairly recently. This was probably over 10 yrs ago now. Anyway, he said that the buyer from up north paid him in full for the car and then it sat here for almost a year with no more contact, and then one day a rollback from up North (Detroit he thought) with a Ford Dealership logon on the side pulled up and loaded the car and off it went. He said he had no idea where.
I know it's not much to go on, but I've always wondered about that L89/L78 Camaro and what became of it. I've got the VIN number in my safety deposit box, and next time I'm at the bank I'll pull it and add it to this post if nobody has any ideas on it.
I also owned a '68 Bronze 375 Camaro SS myself that I sold about 20 yrs ago and have no idea where it went, but think I have the protecto plate on it somewhere. Last I knew it was being fairly misrepresented by a muscle car dealer in South Carolina and making the auction rounds, but've never seen it since. It was Bronze with hounds tooth interior, M21, 3.73 & dogdish hubcaps on stock wheels. It was a SUPER nice car, but had a warranty shortblock and was not the low miles original tired car the dealer was representing it to be.