I found myself driving by car dealers that weren't on the way home

I have an obsession with the Camaro...My grandfather purchased a 350/350 2bbl Daytona Yellow Camaro in 1970. Grandma lost a bet that she could stay on her diet, she took one lick of a lolly pop while at Lagoon with the family and bam, grandpa came home in a yellow rocket. When I was very young I went in grandpa's garage and saw it there. It was tired, it had been wrecked and fixed multiple times, panels were rusting, someone had tried their hand at fiberglass rust repair. Every time we went to grandpa's house from then on out I would sneak out and look at the car. Someone had taken the air cleaner off and parts lay about under the hood. Sometime in my teens I found the manual in the garage and began placing a couple parts on here and there. small insignificant parts like hooking back up the vacuum hoses, putting the distributor cap back on etc. Mostly just dreaming. I was in high school and I took an advanced automotive class that required rebuilding an engine. It was really nostalgic as my father had taken a night class years before and rebuilt his Mustang 289 in the same shop. My dad did some networking. At that time grandpa's Camaro had been traded to Ross for some work he had done on grandpa's other car. The car was still in the garage and my father bartered and traded some toolboxes from his S-10 truck and acquired the car. My friend Danny helped me tow the car from grandpas house to the school. We fired it up just to see if it would, it fired up and smelled like varnish but it was alive! It spent the next 6 months in the shop as we rebuilt the engine and worked on massaging it back to life. I drove the car for about a year and enjoyed every minute! But the reality was the car had spent too many years rotting. I hadn't had the money to do a full restoration but I began anyway. We tore it all the way down. It is still torn down but the front suspension was all rebuilt, we rebuild the engine and transmission the correct way and it was time for replacing the quarter panels. I purchased a '71 for parts but then got greedy and was going to build both. <> I was working two jobs, going to school, having fun, etc. No money for the car and not much time either. One of the conditions when we got married and we sorted out our debts and assets was the '71 had to go. The guy that got it got a steel! Jen and I married and a couple months later I bought a car without "permission". It was the first real big blow up of our marriage. I came across a rare gem of a 1984 Camaro with CrossFire injection. The engine had been swapped out for a 350 and the car was wicked fast. It was only $100!!! How could I not buy it for that cheap? It was Blue with T-Tops. It needed a lot of work but I drove it for a while and then sold it to my very good friend Jeff who still has it today. I didn't want to let it go but it had to or I was going to have to sleep in it ;)  About six months later I came across a '70 that was in good enough condition it could be a daily driver with a quick engine and trans rebuild. Jen agreed if I sold my truck we could get it. So I sold my favorite truck of all time to satisfy my obsession. I was on a real tight budget but managed to rebuild it for very little investment and had a daily driver. It wasn't perfect but I was driving it. Over the next number of years it got tired and I made small attempts to keep it going but it was in desperate need of a full overhaul. It got parked and when we moved to Washington I made a commitment to make real progress on it. To date it has a new Heidts front suspension and subframe, I have reworked the firewall and am fabricating a lot of parts. I just received the rear suspension and I am making good progress. A couple more years and this will be an amazing machine.

 Over the same years I had another obsession. I wanted to purchase a brand new Camaro like grandpa had done. In 1998 I went to the dealer and we filled out all the paperwork for a silver cloud Z28 with deletes on all the power windows, leather, etc. It would be the closest to a COPO Camaro as you could get. It would be a very rare car(had it actually been purchased) I worked out the payments and the finance guy at the dealer was nice enough to have me call the insurance company first and find out what it would cost to insure a 17yr old with a new z28. I was devastated....It was going to cost $550/month to insure. I couldn't afford anything like that, what a contrast from my $67 for the '79 Olds. That was the last year you could delete options like that. When we got married the dealer I worked for had a black Z28 on the lot. As an employee they were willing to give me an incredible deal. I took Jen for a ride, we had only been married for four days. We loved the car, Jen was concerned that it wasn't a practical car for starting a family....A couple months later her Honda was blowing up, the trans was ready to drop out of it. We needed to trade it in now or we were going to be stuck. We figured if we took it to one of those big tent sales they might not look as hard at the car and we'd get more for trade in. We were right. We looked at a bunch of cars that day. One was a Z28, I called the insurance and it would be 280 a month to insure. Jen said nope! We kept looking and ended up with a car that I actually liked, not loved...a 2000 Pontiac Grand Am. We didn't even call on the insurance because of course it would be cheaper to insure a four door family car right? We got home and found out it was $330/month!!!! In 2001 there were rumors the Camaro was going away, I wrote General Motors and got a reply to my surprise, they said the Camaro wasn't going away and I was glad. I planned on buying it in a couple years when we got things in order. In 2002 their lie became clear, no more Camaro. We looked at a couple left at the dealer but we flat out couldn't afford it at that moment. My dream was gone...Then in 2006 a concept car put the dead muscle car market on notice. The Camaro was a hit, so much so GM scrambled the boys down under and used the Zeta platform to build it. 2010 came around, I went to the dealer and asked to drive one. They basically said piss off...Not a chance...Nope...Buy it first, then drive it??????!!! It didn't matter what dealer I went to. They wouldn't even talk to you until you forked over the cash. To top it off they were adding 10k to the sticker price and people were paying it!! I was too focused on my career and being ready to move at a moments notice so I decided to wait until we moved. When we moved to Washington the Honda Civic we were driving was tired and needed to be replaced. I wanted a Camaro but their was talk of the Z28 coming and I didn't want to buy anything else. We needed a car that was big enough to cart family around when they visited. Unknown to us we were going to need a car big enough for the TWINS!!! We bought a Pontiac G8, they were cheap after the collapse of Pontiac because people were worried there wouldn't be parts or warranty. GM still honored the warranty and Holden still made parts. So we got a steal! The G8 is a zeta platform Holden Commodore VE made in Australia. When Pontiac was drowning they made a last ditch effort to survive by importing the Holdens and slapping a different bumper on them. It is essentially a four door Camaro when you look at the engine and chassis, at least that's how I justified it in my mind. Then the ZL1 came out. It was going to be the Z28 but they changed their mind last minute and kept the name for a future release. I loved the ZL1 but couldn't afford it, especially with the twins being born the year it came out. I found myself driving by chevy dealers that weren't on the way home. I know everything there is to know about the car, option codes, gear ratios, performance specs etc. I would talk to salesman and they would try and blow smoke and I would correct them. I would explain which parts I wanted and they would tell me they didn't have that. I left a lot of dealers annoyed. About a month ago I took Jen and we went to the dealer. We drove two cars a 1LE and a ZL1. The ZL1 is a sick car, as I pushed the go pedal down getting on the freeway I thought this isn't that fast. Then I looked down and saw I was going 120mph!!! The car was incredible, suede leather on everything, Magnetorheological struts, supercharged 580 hp!! I was in love. There was a Blue Ray Metallic ZL1 at another dealer that I wanted. Production with that color was only 176. It would be a collector car in 20 yrs. The reality hit when we worked out the payments. I just couldn't afford a $63k car...I was heartbroken. While I had done better for myself in earning, the world had gotten more expensive around me and I flat out couldn't afford it. The new model 2014 had changes that made the car look terrible, I hate it. The 2013 Camaros were selling fast, the Blue Ray 2SS 1LE that was second on my list sold a couple weeks later. Then I stumbled on a car at a dealer that stood out. The price was better than any I had seen. It was a stripped down race car, as close to the COPO cars of 69. As a 1SS it had no leather, no heads up display, no CD player etc. The only Options it had was the RS and 1LE making it more affordable and the 1LE made it something I would like. The 1LE option got all the goodies from the ZL1 except the magnetic ride and the supercharger. It has lower gears, heavy duty close ration trans, electric power steering, big brakes, big wheels and tires, I mean BIG.  White was the second lowest on my list but when we drove by and I saw it in person it grabbed me. I got out and looked at it and I knew. I got back in the car with Jen and told her to go look. She normally would have said no but she went and checked it out. I asked her what she thought. She said "I'm not saying no" I asked if that was a yes, she said no, she just wasn't saying no...Done, I went in and bought it. The salespeople were nice but didn't have a clue about this car.

 Click on this link to read about the car
http://www.chevroletperformance.com/vehicles/2013-camaro-1le/

Needless to say my dream has come true, I pinch myself everyday. I love this car and someday a grandchild of mine will take the keys and continue the dream.

Thank you Jen, I love you

Thank you Grandpa for the dream