| enio45 |
06-16-2017 05:59 PM |
The story on the Z -
The car was delivered to Bill Heard Chevrolet in Alabama. It was believed to me a military person that purchased it. We don't know his name - but somewhere in the early 70's the car was purchased by a guy in Phoenix - (Randy) and he worked at the Brown and Brown Chev Dealership - in the parts department. Randy - around 78 decided to restore the car and took it apart...had it painted and when the paint was done, it was a wrong color Cortez Silver...more like a 71-72 color with the green tint in it. Well that stalled everything and it never went back together.
In the mean time, Randy being in the parts department order a slew of NOS parts for the car...and in those days as compared to now, the parts were cheap!! I have a stack of all of the receipts from 78, 79, and 80 where he order nos parts and stashed them with the car. Over the years, the car moved with him from a few garages - and then sold to another camaro enthusiast in phoenix with all the parts. The car and the parts sat in his warehouse on a lift in the air for years....not touched, motor in a crate, trans in a crate, and overhead of nos parts and some used stuff as well as the pieces that came off the car. Shaun mentioned one day that his buddy was thinking about selling the car - so we paid him a visit, pulled all the parts out, did an inventory of what was there and stuck a deal.
Shaun and I moved all the stuff to my house and i began to re-inventory the car and NOS/used parts. Mike Angelo was in town over the winter and i solicited his help to take the rest of the car apart and get it ready to head to the paint shop. While the car was in que to get painted, I started on all the components, refinishing the subframe, rebuild the motor and trans, rear and all the other parts, such as the dash, console etc.....Shaun did all the painting on the black stuff with the various shades of black. I also arranged to have Jerry MacNeish inspect the car when it was all tore apart, so he could see all the VIN's , inspect the motor, trans and rear out of the car and all of the other important pieces and get his certification.
I collected in the mean time, several NOS Bill Heard memorabilia, rear tail panel emblem, shirt, plaque etc to go with the car.
We decided to strip the car and get all the old paint and repaint off the car, so Shaun and his guy chemically stripped the car to preserve all the orig sheet metal stretch marks, dimples and spot welds. As i did with the my green Z, we repainted the car back in lacquer and ensured that the factory type orange peel was evident and followed up with a good compound buffing and no sanding to preserve the assembly line look. Body was one of the best any of us has seen - equivalent to my 1600 mile Z. Being an arizona car living inside for most of its life, that preserved it pretty well.
With a few more things to finish up on the car - Shaun is doing the stripes now and i have to do some tuning on the carb and get some road time. Car on the road already feels great - solid, quiet and like any original car not ever damaged, the doors and windows fit so nicely, adjustments were easy to do. I used mostly NOS parts when i needed to replace some items, and rechromed NOS bumpers and guards.
The car is an 09E build, X77 D80 with the VIN sticker on the door.
One interesting point, somewhere along the way - air conditioning was added to car...mnot sure if Randy did it, or the orig owner from Alabama, but it had a "Fridge King" unit installed in the trunk of the car. Obviously i took that out, but have pics of the unit in the car...ill post those later. Shaun and the guys did a great job on the paint work, I did the assembly and piece parts.....
Now wait until you see the 58 Ferrari Ellena we are completing.....it is over the top!
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