CAMARO IROC Z - Ultimate 80’s Muscle Car?

the ack Camaros of the 8S make no apologies for its americanness you're not going for more than Corvette C4s c5s and in many cases c6s in a world where everything is becoming softer more streamlined smoother a third gen Camaro is the ultimate is that right what what's that let's get to the heart of why these IR rocks are fetching so much more now than they did before what's driving up the prices is the new generation of car enthusiasts the 20 and 30 year olds that are looking for something that not everyone else has but they're not the only ones that are going crazy about this car it's also people like me that remember it from high school when there was nothing cooler than an irck my love for cars didn't come from my friends it came from my dad which owned Camaros it made him possibly the coolest dad on planet Earth and one of them was a yellow irck Z28 that he gave to me that car was oozing coolness especially here in Miami so you can say that this third gen Camaro spans coolness all through the demographic Generations so prices are exploding you know when this car is catching mainstream status that it's coming out on video games just like this did anybody see this it even has duct tape on the door this is actually true because for a lot of years you could not get parts for these cars I know for a fact because my dad tried to get a brand new dashboard for his eyck and it was out of stock for years when I got the Z28 I also couldn't find dashboards even used so what did I do something that I thought was smart but actually wasn't I got the dashboard off a Firebird now the firebird and the Camaro are essentially the same car so it should theoretically fit right yes but no it fit but it wasn't quite right the edges didn't quite line up the way it should but the way that I saw it it was better than putting one of those Carpets on the dashboard it looked good it just wasn't right but guess what now you can get more parts including dashboards for the third gen Camaros that you couldn't before and it's very simple because companies are just following the money you see as the prices of these Camaros keep Rising it's now worth it to invest money in them and make them almost Factory new that wasn't the case for many years these cars were more neglected than even the fox body Mustangs so what happened with the irck it got too expensive to keep them on the road relative to the price of them that of course has completely changed so any amount that you would spend bringing them back up to what they should be you more than get your money back if you were to resell it but realistically most people that are buying these cars just want to keep them and enjoy a cool ride that nobody else has a lot of people are interested in something that's different but not just different because you can have different and interesting and not cool at the same time I'm talking about a car that's cool and different believe it or not this is a huge problem and it's the reason reason why classic cars are so expensive you can't easily buy one you've got to search hunt sometimes for years just to find the right one it's very difficult to have a car that is special if everyone can have one the more special the more unique and this is how classic cars are naturally this car always gets compared to the fox body Mustang and I can see why they're both American Muscle V8 rear whe drive cars but whenever you see the comparison they're never Apples to Apples so when the fox body Mustang actually share platforms with a lot of different Passenger cars because it was more of a normal car that was not the case with the third gen Camaros it was a custom platform shared only with the firebird they were more expensive to make and they handled completely different Chevy used what they learned in the iro series to make better their road cars year after year the moment that you see one on the streets you can tell that this car is closer to a NASCAR than a street car so when you see the Camaro stance that is lower and wider than most other cars cars of the time that's the reason the handling and the Turnin is next level compared to the Mustang I know cuz I've owned many Fox body Mustangs it was actually my first car and everybody that I knew that had a fox body Mustang crashed it including me I knew exactly zero people that crashed their Camaros or Trans Ams that was just not a thing and it's still not a thing the handling on these cars to go to road courses and do some serious Laps on is incredible the platform is naturally designed for that and that's part of the huge renewed interest that these cars are getting another reason why these cars are getting so popular now is because there are none on the road no nice ones for a lot of years you could still see them on the road but the ones that you would see are the beaters those cars have long been put to pasture so when people see an iro Z28 rolling down the road they don't have memory of an ugly one or one that was beat up they just see nice car and when they go online all they see is mint Camaro and after they spend spend $60,000 to parking in the garage their neighbors are not going to tell them oh there's another one like it across the street that is in so so condition no that might be the only one within a 20m radius so the fact that you can get one that is not the same as everyone else's because there is no everyone else's means that you get something that's truly yours and truly special which years are the best years well I can tell you from the auction prices the mid1 1980s are the ones that are fetching the most money with t-tops and the Corvettes 5.7 now these cars are in unbelievable original condition there are no mods on these cars they are as original as possible down to the radio a lot of people love the manuals and they are a great drive but you've got to remember that this car has a big American V8 with a lot of lowend torque the Corvette l98 5.7 engine is a monster with this car and it truly does feel really strong for a lot of years I I thought that that was the way to go but if you're looking just for yourself to go to the car shows to go with your girlfriend or your wife as long as he's got a V8 it's more than enough now I know that faster is always better but let me put it to you this way when I was dating my then girlfriend which is not my wife I remember when we went out in the irck she was scared half the time and I was driving like an old lady and I had given her a ride in way faster cars but the irck is what kind of scared her and it was also the one that she preferred the most because it was wild and crazy to her so it depends what you want it for remember us as guys we have a perception of speed and we're thinking competition all the time but don't let that take away the fun of a stock irck as it is believe me if it's original and running properly it needs nothing so if you're going to do some mods on your third gen Camaro you've got to always remember this this is the poster this is a Perfection anything that you do that takes it away from this is bringing down the value this is what people are looking up when they look up iro Z's so if you do want to modify it everything that is cool with the irck Z's is the sleeper look trying to make it look as stock as humanly possible upgrading everything else so we doing LS swaps or go as is doing Wheels if they mimic these if you try to put your own spin on it it might be cool but remember this is the poster and this is what people want to pay big bucks for the third gen Camaros now are in a very unique position that whatever money you put into it if you do happen to resell you'll get it back a double or triple if you stay with the formula if you divert from it then you're getting off the road stay on the highway this is the look Chevy sold so many of these cars that many of them are still left all around the United States with under 100,000 mies and they just need light restoration now restoring an irck is actually a lot less than restoring a lot of other cars you can get brand new dashboards seats and carpet for very little money the one thing that you really got to watch out for is rust the thing with these cars is that they were so versatile and so everyday friendly that these Camaros got used every single day even in snow covered with salt and so that means rust so its usability was part of the problem these cars were used and if you see some now with rust on the frame the only proper way to really deal with rust is to strip it and fully sand blast it and see what's there otherwise you won't even know where it has rust so Restorations are really inexpensive and more and more of the replacement parts are being made available month by month actually but don't forget about rust sometimes it's just not worth it and it's better just to start off with a different car that doesn't have the rust believe me there's nothing worse than restoring a Car 2 and 1/2 years later you go to Jack it up and the Jack goes right through the floor pan No Bueno so there are some hidden gems and I mean gems when it comes to these cars and it is the 1991 and 1992 Camaros why are these cars so different now besides the visuals they have a totally different vibe right but that's not why they're a Hidden Gem you see with the 1991 and 1992 Camaros Chevrolet started using their new construction technique which included bonding metal pieces together with a structural bonding and anybody who's driven a low mouth Z28 with a stiffer suspension knows that those cars are drum tight I mean you could be going over bumps sideways and the car does not care you don't hear a squeak whatsoever and is not because they're better taken care of it's because the new construction techniques were actually used on those years those are a Hidden Gem with Benefits that nobody talks about I remember when my dad gave me this car I at first didn't know what to think about it because to me it was my childhood car but I unfortunately sold this car and thinking about it a couple things pop up to mind what a huge mistake telling my dad's iro Z28 was not just because of how cool it was and it was pretty cool but because of what that car meant to him it says everything about him and about this country that is good and it is if I ever get it back I will never sell that car again

Channel: Hernan SPEED

Views: 25,218

Keywords: irocz28, 3rdgencamaro, third generation camaro, l98, crossfire, fbody, 80's camaro, thridgencamaro, transam, v8, z28, irocz, camaroirocz, Miami, tflcar, carwizard, thesmokingtire, centerline, myrightcar, donutmedia, couches.net, curiouscars, motorweekretro, mattfarah, caseyputsch, nickmurray, scottykilmer, dutchmann, rogerbailey, muscle car

Id: Qj_QKz8SDfM

Length: 10min 19sec (619 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 23 2023