Remember when you used to hate these late 2nd Gen Camaros? I couldn’t stand them for decades. Now I dig them. And there isn’t any real reason that I can put my finger on for my newfound love of these cars. They just speak to me. Although lots of late 70’s and early 80’s stuff speaks to me lately. I was born in 1972 so it isn’t like these cars were around and my favorites when I was first being exposed to cars. Sure the Trans Am from this era was always popular because of Smokey and the Bandit and such. But I dig the Camaros now, and when I saw this really clean, low mileage, daily driver reliable, 1979 Z28 Camaro for sale for just under $10,000 it seemed like a great price to get into a nice car to me.
A few simple, and low buck, modifications would have this thing sitting a bit lower on a good set of wheels and tires for the NMCA West Autocross series that is going on this weekend.
Do you think it is a good deal? What about these sames types of cars from Ford and Mopar? Are they cool enough again to make a clean $10,000 a good buy?
If you want this one, here is the info from the seller:
1979 Z28 Camaro. Daily driver great condition 42k miles. $9999 obo. 4 speed manual transmission. Text me anytime. Adam (818) 730-2807
Hard to tell without a link with more photos, but I’m gonna say no. Centerlines still look cool to me, but the 305 would suck hind tit. All bark, no bite. A “Chihuahua” muscle car.
With a studded collar!
Should be a 350, but a weak one. That’s not hard to fix.
I have a soft spot for these cars. Especially the 1980-1981 Z-28. I have one now, a black T-Top car with gray leather 4th gen Firebird seats. It is a wonderful car. It has a nearly stock small block, so it’s not fast, but with the 700r4 and 3.23 gears it gets great mileage and it sounds like it’s fast.
I have less than $5K in mine since I built the car, painted it, did the interior, and built the engine and trans myself. But for $10K, that 1979 is a deal.
The hatred came later, after their record sales for Camaros was 1979. They were plenty loved when they came out. As years passed, they became the stereotypical car of mullet-headed types, a symbol of the dreaded disco era.
The Trans Am’s of the same era were some how spared this same hatred thanks to a movie called Smokey and The Bandit.
I recall these well. I never owned one personally, but they were a product of the times. They weren’t very fast, but they looked the part. I think this was during the time when most ‘muscle cars’ were very heavily smogged, and used a single catalytic converter. Basically a y-pipe into a single cat, and then a second ‘Y’ pipe into dual exhaust tips. It was pretty awful for performance and fuel economy. Chevrolet wasn’t alone in this regard. I happen to be a MoPar guy, but I didn’t “hate” on these. Basically, MoPar had “surrendered the field” by this time, so choices were limited. I recall my IT manager was quite enamored with his Blue Z28, and I relayed to him that my 1972 Dodge full sized wagon (440 CI) had embarrassed cars like his, in a straight line (no joke).
At any rate, all of the basic issues can be resolved pretty easily, and unless someone is dead set on keeping it stock, this one looks like a nice viable candidate for a young-ish person to get into a nice looking car that still has performance potential.
just my .02
8 grand would be good because of the 305. I had one a 79. It was a nice decent original car with a 350. I got a good buck for it a number of years ago.
The daily driver part of the ad seems very unbelievable for a 39 year old car to have just 42,000 miles on it. That is roughly 3 miles per day! I have a 1980 Camaro with 56,000 miles on it. I only drive it on sunny days and never in the snow. I live in Toronto, so you know that we get a fair bit of snow and rain.
Where are you guy coming up with that this car has a 305?? The 1970-1980 Z28s were “350” only!! The “305” in the Z28 showed up in 1981.