Everyone used to fake Z's back in the day, but back in the 80's this was
the norm for anything that wasn't genuine. Everybody wanted a car as bad and as fast as the real cars they used to see street racing on Friday or Saturday nights. Take this car as a case in point. Locally sold and a one owner base Rallysport coupe that was factory equipped with a 327, power glide and base blue interior. In the early 80's a local kid named Chris Gouda gets a hold of it and starts eyeing up some mods for it. In 1984 he strips the paint in his dads body shop and then decides to start collecting some parts for it from the local GM counter at GSL Chevrolet. It takes him 3 years to complete the transition and pay for all the parts, but he does it by ordering a complete NOS deluxe interior with buckets, headrests, console gauges, fold down rear seat, tic toc tack, speedminder, rear defrost and a long list of GM original parts that totaled into the tens and tens of thousands back in the mid eighties. He then begins to work on the drive line and installs a 302 built by a well known local racer, added an M22 trans, 12 bolt with 4:10 gears and then repaints the car with factory Grotto Blue adding white stripes in his dads body shop. Of course he then added the Z/28 fender tags to emulate the car he'd often dreamed of having.
After 2/3 years of down time, out comes a wicked 68 street car that has remained local and looks every bit a real Z/28. It was also done at a time in which it was an accepted norm to modify or alter cars, and back then cars were not referred to as a numbers or born with car, clones, tributes or even fakes. Just a built car that looked cool and took some numbers on the street. I own the car now and it makes a really wicked driver with what is now a 30 year old restoration on an original low mile chassis. All of the underside floors are still factory stock with their original undercoating and the car has zero rust. Drives like it was restored yesterday and has no squeaks or leaks anywhere, and no repop parts (except for the cowl breather added a couple years ago). Every part Chris bought was an NOS GM piece and I have all of the receipts from the long list of GM parts that he ordered when it was restored. People said he was crazy when he did this but all that mattered to him was building the car he truly wanted. Numbers simply didn't mean much of anything to many back then.
Even the 30 year old NOS sill plates are looking killer in this car (try and find those now days). The car does have GM docs showing the original RS build, and I plan to keep this little gem my driver car for many many years to come. Over the winter, the heads will be freshened, the cam stepped up a few notches, headers will be added and a Crossram will be installed with a freshly built pair of 4295 carbs. Might even add a few Day II mods since I plan to have a lot of fun with this car as my two boys come of age to become car owners. I have no problem with clones, tributes and built cars as long as one is honest about what they are, especially if they are as nicely done as this one, or have verified GM paper showing the true nature of the car. Here are some shots of this nice little coupe that I have added to my growing collection. Z tags and all.
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