An ode to my Camaro

Now it is sold, I can tell everyone what it meant to me, and what I did with it. I can't even fathom how many times I redlined that motor and it LOVED it! The daily second gear burnouts, a natural side effect of the v8 acceleration. The fish tailing, the glorious fish tailing, always on demand, for my amusement. The time I buried the speedometer that reads up to 160mph, and I still had a gear left. All the Mustang GTs that it out accelerated with me driving. The Acura NSX I had no trouble keeping up with. However, I never even got a speeding ticket with it.

She was my daily driver for years! After 80k miles as a Chicagoland commuter, summer and winter (as long as snow fall was less than 2 inches), it still sounded just like the day I brought it home. I impress myself that I never crashed it, curbed it, bottomed it out. I paid 8900 in 2004, and never put a dime into it, except tires(twice) and brakes(once). Hell, I even got 25 mpg city, and OVER 30 on the highway. It ALWAYS started, it NEVER leaked, and was proudly never towed. 5 years ago I parked it, wanting to preserve the relatively low miles, at my parents house.

However, it was painful, to watch it sit and rot, literally biodegrade before my eyes(these newer cars will not last like the old ones) , after years of perfect service, simply because I have no garage, too many cars. I grew up. I also got sick of never being able to keep the check engine light off, lol.

I will not forget all the sporty driving, the Mustangs it dominated, the Acura it hung with, the top speed run. I will not forget every time I did not tuck and roll properly to exit the drivers seat, and pulled my groin muscle as a result. Lets also not forget (speaking of groins), All the Ladies Loved the Camaro! I met my wife with that car.
Now, that it is gone, I will never forget the greatness of my not so great Camaro, the likes of which I may never own again.

Drive on, Camaro, drive on. McGuire Road will always be ours.

 

Excellent times! You will always have the memories!!

 

Wonderful times. Takes me back to a 1969 Lincoln Continental 2 door that I once had.

Here's to hoping that you got to make one last memory with her:

 

I took it the the Annual Power Tour when it passed through Mobile. It was a nice feeling when my daily driver fit right in with all the classic and muscle cars.

 

Never forget about old cars, or old guys
I need Garage Squads help...

Makes me wonder how many people have projects hiding in the garages or back yards.

 

It's really cool when you find that 1 car that you can bond with. My current Tundra is that vehicle. Already have cool memories, and I've only had it a year and a half. Great back story with your Camaro. Rock on!

 

It was the weirdest thing, I was thrilled to sell it, until I sold it, and then it felt like loosing a pet I have had since 2004. I always had a vision of swapping the LS1 and transmission from that into my little 2011 Tacoma regular cab 2wd.

 

@Jim LE 1301

 

I had an 86 camaro V6 I loved. It was rock solid under the hood, but it leaked water, the headliner was rotten, etc.

Not old, but I traded a 16 Mustang GT in on my Tundra. I loved that car, but it was time to move on. It wasn't the fastest modern high performance car in the world, but it was a brute and would annihilate 99 out of 100 cars I encountered. When I first got it, my arms would shake after redlining it through a few gears. Not to take anything away from the classics, but about 10 years ago began the second muscle car era...except they're faster, they can stop on a dime, and you'll actually usually survive a crash.

 

That was another reason, actually. If enterprise gives me a v6 Impala for a rental, it has just as much rated horsepower. The base Camaro and Mustang engines make as much or more power as the base LS1 in mine, and the new v8s are more than double the horsepower in top trim. That LS1 was the engine to have for years, but not anymore. The 178 mph top end speed of that era Camaro will always be respectable. That interior though, egad. Owning that car made me an expert in cheap plastics and low exits! One must be limber like Chuck Norris to repeatedly get in and out without a pulled inner leg muscle. I am no Chuck Norris, more like Gérard Depardieu, actually.

 

That is on my bucket list.

 

Looks like mine....

 

In that era, few cars, if any, could do what an LS1 equipped Camaro could for the money.

 

Yep, I love my this one and would never sell it, I bought it brand new.

 

My 16GT was a fall in/climb out cockpit but the seats were great and the ride of the performance package suspension was really pretty good.

The 2000-ish WS6 Ram-Air Trans Am is still on my short list. I drooled over that thing. Still do..lol