I love pine and payson. Have a buddy that has a cabin in pine, beautiful area!

Yes the rim country South East of here is beautiful. Payson is about 5,000+ feet so they do see some snow over there, much like Prescott but Payson seems to get hit with more. The big thing that is worrisome about living up in the pines anywhere in Arizona is forest fires. I almost lost this Z to the Yarnell fire 7 years ago when I had it stored at my friends property over there. The garage burnt to the ground just weeks after I brought it to Prescott. The pines and mountains are beautiful though. There are so many great places to live in Arizona I don't think I could name just one.

Love the Z, and would love to hear more information/stories about it and what you've found with regard to it. I am sure everyone here would love to hear more as well, and finding ones like that where they're in very solid shape and unmolested is probably the dream of just about everyone on this page.

Did they ever rebuild the team after all those deaths? The Granite Mountain Hotshots seemed to be held in pretty high regards by the portrayal in the movie.

Never knew that it was the Prescott area I would have went by when I was up that way a few years ago? We have a place in Mesa that mom winters at.

I don't think they did. There was talk of it, but it cost the town millions when they died, insurance was a mess, and multiple law suits, so all I heard was that the town couldn't afford another team like that. I'm sure those law suits are probably still tied up in court.
However I still do see the Granite Mountain Hot Shot trucks running around when ever there is a forest fire or a controlled burn going on, I'm just not certain there is an actual Hot Shot team anymore, but we do have guys that go in on foot and fight these fires as that is the only way (other than plane and helicopter) to fight some of these fires. The terrain around here is extremely rugged, but beautiful.
If you were up in central Arizona you likely were in Prescott. We are about 90 miles North of Phoenix on top of the Bradshaw Mountain range. Mesa would be a little further, maybe 110 miles or so. I like the Mesa and Queen Creek area down there.

When I get a chance to sit down this evening I'll write some more about it. Although it's not as exciting as some of the stories on the board here.

So I'll add a little interesting pieces to the story.

When Jerry bought this car off the kid that had it for sale in the auto parts store parking lot, he told Jerry he simply bought the car from 2 guys with his only intention of flipping it for a quick buck. He went on to say these 2 guys simply bought the car to rob a few parts off of it for another 69 Camaro that they were working on. He didn't say what and Jerry didn't care. Even back then people knew what X33 meant on the data plate and Jerry knew that. The Z was complete and the kid was daily driving it. Jerry bought it, took it home, drove it around a couple of times and then permanently parked it, never to touch it again, with intention of restoring one day when he retired. time flies, 30 years go by, Jerry sadly gets cancer and that day never comes.
So I buy the car from Jerry, still exactly as he found it. It was complete and I didn't think too much about a couple of oddities until Jerry told me that story.

First, I noticed the front bumper was only held on with the bolts on the ends that go through the lower valance sheet metal. I noticed the frame brackets were missing. Thought that was strange. Then noticed the chrome on the front bumper wasn't "weathered" the same as the rear bumper. To top that off, all the jack stuff was missing out of the trunk. Only the spare was there. So I figured they must have swapped front bumpers but why are the frame brackets and jack missing? I'm told the frame brackets are different for the endura bumper. All this leads me to believe my Z may have had an endura originally and they took that for their car. I can't see any other reason why they would swap a chrome bumper for a chrome bumper, and then take the frame mounts off and take the jack out of the trunk. That doesn't make sense, so that's one theory on the car. I believe it's likely an original endura car.

Second, the horn didn't work, and I noticed on the standard steering wheel the shroud was black with an RS emblem. It should be simulated wood since the car has white deluxe houndstooth interior. Hmmm, so I take the shroud off and immediately found the problem. Not only were the wires not hooked up but the contact parts for the horn in the center of the wheel was completely missing. I go to remove the wheel and the nut isn't even tight.
Okay so I think they swapped steering wheels and my only guess is that mine likely had the rosewood wheel and they wanted it, then quickly installed their standard wheel, likely a standard interior car, that would explain the black shroud. I'm guessing their car was also an RS since the standard wheel did have an RS emblem in it. That would also explain why they didn't rob any RS stuff off my Z, thank goodness. That stuff is all original and intact and working.

Another interesting issue. The Z has a console with gauges, but the dash had a standard face center with no clock, and here's the funny part, there was no gas gauge or tach on the right side, just a blank lens with a polaroid picture of a tachometer behind the glass, LOL yes I'm not kidding.
My first thought was the car simply didn't come with a console gauges, but why would the fuel gauge in the dash be missing and a picture of a tach in it's place. I started talking to Bill (I don't know how to spell his last name) but I believe he's a member on the forum here. Very knowledgeable guy, met with him at Barrett Jackson, super nice fella. Anyway he told me to pull the console and look for factory riv nuts. Check, they are present. So we at least knew it's a factory console car. Next he had me check the firewall for the factory piercing of the oil gauge line. Check, it's there with a little factory rubber grommet that even has a part number on it. Was hard to find because the firewall was covered in grime that completely covered up that grommet. William said that grommet isn't reproduced so that's original, so we can be fairly certain it's a factory gauge car. I also found the original unique tall brass oil fitting that goes on the engine sitting in the ash tray. His hunch was that someone replaced the dash fascia from a standard car. So apart the dash comes, sure enough the fascia was only held in loosely with 2 screws. These guys didn't even bother to bolt things back together properly on this car. So I pull out the center fascia and there are the wires for a clock and tach. Apparently they wanted the clock and tach out of the car for their Camaro and left the console. I removed the polaroid picture, kept it because it's just funny to me, and reinstalled a new clock and tach and put things back together the way they are supposed to be.
I want to thank Bill for guiding me through the detective work, without him I may have pulled the console never to install it and this car would have went through life as a no gauge, no console car.

These are the big things I found, there are a couple other oddities I can detail later since this post is getting winded. But there is enough weird stuff there that someone should remember doing this to a 69 Z, or maybe know someone who did. But I suspect back then, this wasn't an unusual practice to buy a complete car to rob some things for a different car and then flip it, since these things were still cheap to buy during that time frame. I'm guilty myself of gutting a few cars back then that would be rare today. I can only imagine that must have been a pretty special 69 Camaro for someone to buy a complete 69 RS Z for a few parts and send it down the road.

Good story and detective work. Bill is quite the guy and has helped me out on numerous occasions as well.

Just curious Any pics of the tach polaroid ?

Yes I do, but posting a picture here isn't something I'm very good at.

Yes Bill is a great guy. He helped with some other detective work on the car as well. I had a suspicion it wasn't a factory ZL2 car and Bill confirmed that with the lack of a punched hole by the fuse box for the ZL2 wiring. So this is a flat hood car.

It's also not supposed to have spoilers either. Both rods for the trunk lid are the same size, and there is no hole in the front core support area for the center spoiler bracing. So that stuff was added a long time ago.

Interesting tid bit, the ZL2 hood on the car is a GM piece and simply had a thin coat of grey primer sprayed over it to cover the factory Garnet Red paint with black stripes. So the hood came off of someone's Garnet Red 69 Z/28.

Eventually all this stuff will go away when I restore the car. But for now it stays to please the Mrs.

Some other interesting notes.

When someone spray bombed the car grey primer, and I mean spray bombed because they didn't bother to mask a lot of stuff like chrome trim and glass, lol.

They removed the wheel well trim, the lower rocker spears and the chrome gills in the quarters, as well as the Z/28 Emblems, and then mudded the holes over for all the trim. Sprayed it grey and left it that way.

It's as if they were trying to hide it's identity. Jerry received all the original trim for the car in boxes when he purchased the car along with a lot of NOS parts. It's a mystery though as to whether the young guy Jerry bought the car from did this or if it was a previous owner. Somehow thankfully the trim stayed with the car regardless. I put it all back on the car.

Not sure why someone would remove all the trim and hide the holes, yet put a ZL2 hood and spoilers on it.

Concealing a theft could be one of the reasons but I'm guessing you already vetted that out. Some people just like a "clean look" of the body lines without interruption, adding spoilers and ZL2 hood would enhance the body line profile IMO.

Yeah, when I put the car back on the road a few years ago one of the first things I did was stop at the DMV. Since Arizona purges records of cars that haven't been registered for 10 years or more they had nothing on it. As if the car didn't exist. I had to pay a fee for them to recreate it in the system. Part of that process was them researching the vin looking for leans and making sure it hasn't been reported stolen or used on another car. That took a few days. It came back with a clean slate.

But of course when you ask them what kind of history the vin returned, they act like they don't know and won't give any details.

Maybe they spray bombed it in primer when they put the Garnet Red hood and spoilers on it? Garnet Red on Fathom Green would've stood out like a sore thumb.

If that is a production ducted hood, check it for the reinforcing 'pyramids' added late April. Hood would pucker at the base of the plenum from being closed.

Early hoods don't have them. Hard to find a good original.

Hey Bill, I was just talking about you earlier :grin:

I'm looking under the hood and don't see an area that quite looks like your picture, so what I'll do is snap a couple pics and send them to your email. Maybe you could tell me if this is a late or early hood.

That's a solid possibility. They simply shot primer right over the garnet red and black stripes. Basically on the top, and when I opened the hood I saw some red and I could see the black stripes extending down over the edge slightly. So when I started stripping it, the primer was very thin, and the red and black stripes came out, and under that was factory black oxide. The bottom side still retains it's original black finish in great shape, overall it's a very nice hood that appears it came off a desert south western car.