Without doing a search for obscurity, I am looking for those questions which have been unresolved, or unsatisfactorily unresolved about the history of third Gens. An example is why did the Camaro get a Convertible in 1987, but the Firebird officially in 1991? Or why do the early Camaros have a sharper highlight line around the wheel well than the 83 & up... I am trying to do a search for those odd questions that have not been answered, just post them here... thanks.

 

I just asked an older gentleman I work with about the softer character line. He was heavily involved at GM at the time the third gen was developed/produced. His recollection was that there was a minor change to the tooling as a result of some damage to the tooling itself. Rather than scrap the expensive tooling, they repaired it, modified the other side to match and proceeded building cars. He explained that happened pretty frequently with cars that sell in large numbers. Sounds logical to me.

In regard to the convertible, he explained to me that Chevrolet had taken the initiative to develop the production convertible in late 1984, using ASC. The plan was to have the convertible ready for the Camaro's 20th anniversary, in 1987. At that point, Chevrolet "owned" the F-Body convertible program and Pontiac declined participation in the convertible program to develop other models. As the 3rd gen aged, both Chevrolet and Pontiac were looking at new ways to keep moving cars. Obviously, Pontiac succeeded with the Formula and the GTA, launched at roughly the same time as Chevy's convertible. As the new wore off of the Formula and the GTA, the convertible was their next logical step. According to him, Pontiac wanted to do the convertible earlier, but didn't have the production capacity (or allocation of production time) until the 1989 Turbo program was finished. Knowing the car was due for a 1991 model freshening, they launched the convertible RPO for the 1991 model year, which came in January of 1990 for the F-car. ASC did produce Pontiacs earlier than that however and offer them to the dealer network. It seems like a pretty clever strategy as it enabled Pontiac to offer several different levels of Firebird at one time and still offer a convertible later.

 

ttt

 

What was the determining factor for some cars getting hush panels and some getting only one side or none at all? Supply issues?

 

That does not sound correct to me, I worked in the industry as well and heavily involved in sheet metal stamping (buying tools for this). Remember the tool have a positive and a negaitve half of the shape required; most times you are looking at several tools to produce the final part doing a single step at the time so forming the part in multiple steps meaning theres multiple sets of tools positve/negative halfs.

If a piece of tooling got damaged they would simply repair it very quickly and polish it all up to match the original shape ... this is the most cost efficient way doing it for wear and damage.

Clearly there were a design change and they updated the tooling to match, reason for the design change is the question then? However must been a good reason why they did it because either update the tooling or getting all new tooling is very expensive specially if you are looking at tooling for body panels for instance (well any tooling is very expensive for the large number of parts they need to produce).

 

If I remember correctly, John and I found this on both Norwood and Van Nuys cars. If a tool was damaged at one plant, I don't believe both plants would change.

 

Scott,
Didn't we find one car that had a sharp corner on one side and not the other?

 

what do you mean by the higlight line above the wheel well?? and how so did it change, this is something ive probably noticed but never payed attention too

 

Yes John, but I think we found that the rear quarter panel was replaced on the one side. It was an 83 if I remember correctly and the 83s were still the sharp edge, right. All replacement panels will be the newer style and I think this car was a repaired car. Don't remember.

 

Look at the fender flares and wheel wells on your Camaro. The front should have a sharper indent over the fender flare and the metal will be flat in the inner wheel well. The rear flare will have a softer line over the top and where the metal turns in to the wheel well there should be a slight lip there. Both different and never explained why. Kinda like the hush panels LOL.

 

Around the wheel wells there is a flair, where the flair blends into the quarter panel there is a highlight line. The Firebirds were blended in and there was not a hard corner. But the Camaros had a hard corner. The 82's and some of the 83's had a sharper corner than the 83+

John

 

I spoke to Jerry Palmer last night who was Chief Designer in Chevrolet Studio III, responsible for the Camaro and Corvette when the third gen was created. According to him, there was a repair to the tooling that softened the line on the left fender. Rather than create an expensive new tool, they altered the right one to match. The reason both Van Nuys and Norwood cars had the change is due to the fact that the outer sheetmetal for both plants was done at one Fisher stamping facility, which he recalled was in Ohio. He expressed that they never initiated a directive from design to change the appearance of the character line on the sheetmetal. They focused their changes specifically to soft parts, i.e. noses, tails and skirts to freshen the car over its life span, which was much more economical. There were also another half dozen or so tooling changes/repairs he mentioned as well. He also stated that the original plan called for the car to be reskinned around 1988, but sales were still strong enough to leave it alone until the fourth gen arrived. He made an excellent point in stating that they had never intended to make so many cars annually for so long, using the same sheetmetal the entire 11 model-year run.

 

What other tooling changes/repairs did he mention?

 

The answer is probably as simple as cost, but personally, I always thought it strange that the f-bodies got the iron headed dog v6s, and that gm didn't bother giving them the gen II aluminum heads when they came out....why put the way better heads on the fwd granny cars, and not on the RWD performance car...when all that's really required is different pistons....
Also I couldn't help but notice that my nostrils on my nose lined up(I think) with my dual snorkel air box, but I have it gutted now so its hard to say, but it almost looks like it might have had factory ram air, before I gutted the box. Just kind of wonder if the nostrils were more than just for appearance.
Also think its somewhat strange that the headlights didn't have covers on the camaros, since these cars were supposedly extensively tested in wind tunnels for low drag coefficient, It's almost like taking any typical car, and then putting 2 or 4 bricks on the front of the hood, which is something else, can't help but notice that all camaros, especially 2nd and 3rd gens have rather massive hoods, and doors, also I've always wondered where that extra bracing the t-tops cars have is. Just some little things I've often wondered about, I'll probably think of more.

 

He mentioned floorpan, tunnel, quarter panel and rear panel (behind the taillights/bumper).

 

Why does Chevrolet say they built 70,007 Camaros in 1992, but mine is 70,008?

Leonard

 

I say you're damn lucky

 

I'm not complaining!!

Leonard

 

Here's a good one! What company manufactured the original hood insulation pad? I still need a new one!

 

me too!

 

I have a question on the overhead console availability. My late build '83 (June 3rd week) had one when I bought her and I thought someone added it. It wasn't in great shape so I took it down only to find the correct mounting post and a stamped cutout for the map light. Does anyone ,or has anyone, run across a late build '83 with the inner roof panel stamped to accept the overhead console? My thinking it was added similar to the L69 mid year but not in any '83 brochure. She also has the Delco radio with 5-band EQ but that is such an easy swap it could have been done at any time (I also had to replace this as the cassette section didn't work).

 

Who or why was there a decision to change the 12th digit in the VIN from a 1 to a 4 on '85 Van Nuys built Camaros? I'm dying to know the answer to that one!!

 

Why did 1986 have to be a such a bastard year?

 

I'll second that. Also 1991.

 

How about what rhyme or reason was there to finding Build sheets, why some cars not others? What happened to those not found in cars?

 

Somewhere in 1985 the paint changed from a single stage to a BCCC system, when did that happen, The data kind of reads that it did not happen until 1986, BUT there are cars with BCCC from 1985... At least that is what I remember...

 

Those not found in cars might have gotten collected by people like me who work at dealerships.

 

Since the build sheets are located either anywhere or nowhere, there was likely no requirement to include it with the car. It's purpose is to assemble the car, not tracking it's history 30 years later.

For the ones that were included in the car, it was done simply because stuffing it into the car is easier than walking it over to the trash can.

 

Because once the car was built, the assembly line worker no longer cared about that piece of paper once the car had what it was ordered with so it usually just got tossed.

 

What makes '91 a bastard year?

 

Total guess but I bet That GM made other cars in that plant and the VINs reflect the total cars built there including Firebirds and whatever else came down the line.

maybe?

 

The way I saw it posted once was on both lines the order was Camaro-Firebird-Camaro-Firebird.

so no matter Norwood or Van Nuys your camaro/firebird had a firebird/camaro in front of and behind it on the line which would mean that camaro seq#100004 had#100003 and 100005 on firebirds.

 

+1

Everybody knows that 1991 was the best year...

 

I believe the reason for it, was that my order was what they called a "hand carried order". Since my car had to be the last one built, they massaged the build schedule. There were no other cars built in the plant at that time or anytime since.

Leonard

 

You are exactly right! When I was at the assembly plant, I picked many parts tickets, etc out of the garbage cans so I could keep them.

Leonard

 

Camaros vin starts @ 100,001
Firebirds vin starts @ 200,001

IF i remember correctly

 

That is not correct. The VIN number shows the sequence. In 1992, the year Leonard is speaking of, GM states that 70,007 Camaros were produced. His VIN number is 70,008, which would say that 1 car was scrapped, a VIN number skipped or the plant workers were superstitious and skipped #13! In either case, his car was the very last car off the assembly line so that goes to show the theory of Camaro/Firebird sharing sequence VIN numbers is incorrect.

 

So Leonard is the guy who bought the very last thirdgen Camaro?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YcOe-opsJY

 

Yes, Leonard has owned the last ThirdGen Camaro built, which also happens to be the last Van Nuys car built before it was closed, since it was new. He also got to tour the Van Nuys assembly plant to see it built.

He has a website dedicated to the car (where the YouTube video posted above lifted the photos from):
http://www.last1992camaro.com

 

Cool, I've seen the site before...didn't realize the owner was on this site, as I didn't see Leonard pop in recently when there was a thread on it.

So that is indeed Leonard in all of the pictures in the video...I couldn't tell if that was the car's owner who got to watch it be built, or the plant supervisor. Very cool.

How about a thread with some updated high-res pics, Leonard?

 

In the past, there has been a few who asked for high resolution pictures since the ones from the assembly line are a bit dark and dated to 1992. Leonard says it looks the same as it was built. The car has been in storage. I've offered to take new photos of the car as Leonard and I are near the same area. My offer still stands if/when Leonard wants to do so.

 

What's the mileage on it currently? Sub-1000 I assume?

Would be a great piece for this site, to have more pics both of his car (which would also make for a nice reference for people doing restorations) and of the assembly line photos from David...as you said in both cases, the offers stand. Would be great if they would be taken up.

One thing I do like about this site is that it's the only car site dealing with post-muscle era cars that actually cares to document every bit of history there is, from options to assembly practices.

 

The last I heard, after Leonard's last road trip with the car, it had 125 miles on it! I'm sure it's not far from that today.

 

You'll see an increase in time with this. I've noticed it on the 73-87 Chevy truck board I also frequent. Younger people who grew up owning or dreaming of owning cars built from 75-95 will take interest in revisiting them as they get older and have more time and opportunity to do so. I was "born late" so I never got to buy myself a new 3rd gen, but I put it on my list of cars to have and did the next best thing to buying new: buy a survivor. Also wanted: an 87 Grand National, a C4 ZR1, a GTA, IROC, Impala SS, and more...

 

That's impressive, hopefully Leonard will take up the offer to have the car documented with high-res digital photos.

Hopefully, right now I don't see it anywhere else. I'm on several Mustang forums and nobody over on any of those gives two turds about restoration or documenting anything (and in a way they are lucky, there's a full hour-long video of the '94s being built at the assembly plant with full descriptions of each step, how cool would that be for thirdgens?); my Mustang, for whatever reason, happened to be missing the cigarette lighter when I bought it, so I was trying to find out which of two NOS versions was correct for the car, or if it was even supposed to have one at all since I've seen many very nice original cars without one. All I could find out was that there were several different option packages for the cupholders/ashtray/lighter setup, but nobody could really confirm whether the car was supposed to have come with a lighter or not. Eventually a guy chimed in and said version X of the lighter was what I needed so I picked it up for $9, but it was quite a hassle just to get an answer to that simple question...still not really sure if it's supposed to have one or not.

So far thirdgen.org seems to be the premiere site in terms of documentation.

 

Not to start a war or anything but these are my opinions on the Camaro side.
-18 month build that barely cracked 100,000 units. (Yes I understand the IROC name contract thing)
-About half of L98 Z28's got rear drum brakes.
-That damn rear wing on the Z28
-Those slots on the gfx.
To me the third-gen Camaro lost all it's character in '91 and became cookie cutter like in appearance. Although there were redeeming factors in '92 with the Z03 heritage appearance pkg, and the addition of Purple Haze and Polo Green. They just don't have the neat color, stripe, and interior options you could get from '82-'87. Just my .02 worth.

 

None of those things makes it a bastard year being that they all carried on in 92 basically identically.

 

A lot of the things you mentioned (new GFX, no stripes, no IROC-Z stickers) are all things that draw a lot of people (like myself) to the 91-92 years. Add in the most powerful years for the drivetrain options and 91-92s are desirable, especially the 92 25th heritage cars.

 

I agree with the two above, none of those things sans perhaps the drum brakes make '91 a bastard year, but that was also the case in '92.

FTR, I agree that the '91-'92 cars look like the wing/GFX were designed last-minute without much thought, but a lot of people love them the most. That said, I'd rock Kurt's B4C any day of the week. Although I think most of us can agree that the hatch light on the '86 is terrible . I always wondered why GM put the third brake light back up in the hatch in '91-'92; I can somewhat understand it on the Z28 because of the wing styling, but the RS at least should've kept it in the spoiler...it's one of my favorite design elements of the cars.

And don't forget Kurt, '90 had the same power rating as the '91-'92 cars (and was speed density too)...a 1990 car, now THAT is the one to have IMO.

Although I guess I'll go against the grain and say Z03 is a huge turn-off for me, the body-colored grille and ugly stripes don't don't fit the body should've been left off the car. These cars simply don't wear stripes well, IMO. I also am not a fan of purple or dark green cars in general.

 

I used to think drum brakes were something to want to get rid of, but honestly after contemplating brake upgrade options, I don't see the point in throwing disc brakes on the rear, front brakes do 90% of the braking, and pick up a rotor for one of these cars sometime and see how much it weighs compared to an iron drum, much less an aluminum one. The braking gained doesn't outweigh the rotational weight added to the driveline IMO.
Personally, I plan to put bigger brakes up front, maybe even 6 pots, and just leave drums on the rear, but swap them out for an aluminum pair.
And while were on the subject of brakes, out of curiosity why are our front disc brakes(idk if the rears are as heavy or not) so damned heavy? I know its a one piece deal with the hub, but even still, I believe they are the same size as the pair I just put on my aunt's 04 cavy, and those felt like they weighed half as much, and I just don't see the hub accounting for all that weight...were the cavy ones made from steel or something?