Red Camaro

I saw a red camaro today
And I did a double take
  

                                                                             -Rascal Flatts

 

Buying an (almost) 18 year old Camaro on the cusp of a Northern Ohio winter may not seem like the most practical of purchases. However, with the modest budget we had our options were fairly limited. Also, remember who you're dealing with here. Life's too short for boring, normal cars.

We started down the "Camaro Path" about three weeks ago after I stumbled across a 1986 Camaro Sports Coupe in what appeared to be mint condition. It had only 22,000 miles on it but don't get sucked into the low mileage vortex when buying an old car. The older the car, the less significant the number on the odometer is. On a non Z28 Camaro this old with mileage this low, chances are the car is all original. I mean, all original.

That means twenty seven year old fuel injectors, computer, spark plugs, tires, bushings, belts, hoses. You get the idea. This car ran horribly and the dealership was inflexible on the price. Well, I should say, not as flexible on the price as I wanted them to be. They quietly shipped the car to auction before I could up my offer. Just as well. Even at a number for the car that I was comfortable with, I wasn't convinced that what ails this car could be fixed economically.

I did learn something, though; Chip and Will, who didn't even know what a Camaro was beforehand, now had Camaro fever and they had it bad. Will's still talking about the stripes.

Our next speed bump on the way to Bitchin' Camaro Nirvana was a purple/blue, '93. On paper or computer screen, this car looked great. These fiberglass bodied Camaros tend to hold up better, at least appearance wise, than their steel bodied forebears but just like with the '86, looks aren't everything.



While the engine ran better in the '93 than the engine in the '86, this car had front suspension problems, bad brakes, the AC didn't work, the exhaust was shot, the power locks didn't work, the driver's window wouldn't go back up after it slithered down, the driver's door wouldn't open from the outside and the after market radio was installed haphazardly. That's what I could tell in just a five minute test drive. All this on a car with just 79,000 miles on the odo. Remember what I said before about mileage and old cars.

Oh, and there was no power seat. That's important to me on any car because I like to sit high in the saddle. It's really important on this vintage of Camaro since without one, I feel like I'm sitting in a bathtub.

 

 

A week ago Friday night, after some miscommunication between me and Janet, I arrived to pickup our pizza order thirty minutes early. Rather than go home and come back, I fired up the iphone and did a search on cars.com for Camaros. A freshly listed, red, '96 "RS" popped up with just 76,000 miles on her. It has an  automatic transmission and was powered by the muy fabuloso, 3800 V-6. I forwarded the info to Janet and the boys, picked up our pizza and sauntered home.

 

 

Janet was really stoked by the Red Camaro and the boys emotions were mixed. Chip was giddy, Will, our dark, moody son (J/K), was somewhat incredulous. We had been down this road before, you see. Could this be the one? What's wrong with it? There has to be something bad about it, right?

 

  

I contacted the dealership and found that the car was, to my surprise, still available. I made an appointment to see it the next afternoon all the while telling myself repeatedly that the only reason it was still on the lot was because it had been smoked in. Or it needed a lot of work like the '86 or the '93. Or no one drives these cars in Northern Ohio this time of the year.

 

 

Much to our shock, the Red Camaro was even better than advertised. Like the rescue dog we recently adopted, it did everything it could to make us fall in love with it immediately. It's in very good condition, has no obvious needs and most importantly, it has a power seat! Oh, one more bonus was it had a  fairly detailed maintenance record going back about 10 years. Everything from recent brakes jobs to the water pump and both power window motors being replaced. It's all there. Sweet!

 

  

A week of gentle back and forth negotiating (our salesman was a real gentleman), hemming, hawing, more research, hand wringing and declarations to the boys about responsibility and accountability and, ta-dah! we have our latest "family car".

 

 

Welcome to the family, Red Camaro. Rescue Dog (Jax) approves!