Love makes people do stupid things. I love watermelon, so I plant seeds, till the ground and wind up growing fruit the size of my next-door neighbor’s kid…so much of it, in fact, that I wound up taking several large melons out to my backyard for some twelve-gauge time because they had gone bad, nobody had eaten them. Love makes me spin wrenches on the Imperial even though half the time I could watch that car burn and not shed a tear. Love makes me look at this derelict 1977 Chevrolet Camaro and think that there’s hope. Remember, this isn’t just the genesis car that started the sickness in me, it’s also the first car I owned back when I was twelve, and I never got to drive it. The big-bumper second-gens are often derided compared to the “splitbumper” and “rubber nosed” versions, but look at prices lately…someone is scooping these things up fast enough to put nice examples into five-digit territory. So for $3,500, is this car a worthy case or not?

On the surface, this thing is rough. The lower front facia is missing, as is one of the N90 wheels, the door panels, and most of the air conditioning system under the hood. Primer gray isn’t helping matters, and neither is the weird silty look that covers most of everything underhood. The car might be in Virginia, but you’d swear this thing did miles on a red dirt road somewhere during the dusty season. The seller is naturally optimistic about the 350/automatic car, and to have a second-gen Camaro would be a good start into the scene, but is this a case of buyer beware?

What we can’t see we can’t speculate on, and the underhood scene might clean up with a pressure wash. We aren’t going to really pick on the door fitment either…as heavy as second-gen F-body doors are, rebuilding the hinges should be expected. You can have a running, driving ’77 Camaro under the Rough Start budget, but if you’re expecting nice driver or better, prepare to invest coin in the interior and for a matching set of wheels at least. A project, this is, but if you’re buying cheap but planning on long-term work, this F-body just might be the ticket.

Facebook Marketplace Link: 1977 Chevrolet Camaro

(Thanks to Channing Ivey for the tip!)