69 Z/28 history from the Phoenix area?

[x33rs]

Originally Posted by carnut4life

Good story and detective work. Bill is quite the guy and has helped me out on numerous occasions as well.

Yes Bill is a great guy. He helped with some other detective work on the car as well. I had a suspicion it wasn't a factory ZL2 car and Bill confirmed that with the lack of a punched hole by the fuse box for the ZL2 wiring. So this is a flat hood car.

It's also not supposed to have spoilers either. Both rods for the trunk lid are the same size, and there is no hole in the front core support area for the center spoiler bracing. So that stuff was added a long time ago.

Interesting tid bit, the ZL2 hood on the car is a GM piece and simply had a thin coat of grey primer sprayed over it to cover the factory Garnet Red paint with black stripes. So the hood came off of someone's Garnet Red 69 Z/28.

Eventually all this stuff will go away when I restore the car. But for now it stays to please the Mrs.

[x33rs]

Some other interesting notes.

When someone spray bombed the car grey primer, and I mean spray bombed because they didn't bother to mask a lot of stuff like chrome trim and glass, lol.

They removed the wheel well trim, the lower rocker spears and the chrome gills in the quarters, as well as the Z/28 Emblems, and then mudded the holes over for all the trim. Sprayed it grey and left it that way.

It's as if they were trying to hide it's identity. Jerry received all the original trim for the car in boxes when he purchased the car along with a lot of NOS parts. It's a mystery though as to whether the young guy Jerry bought the car from did this or if it was a previous owner. Somehow thankfully the trim stayed with the car regardless. I put it all back on the car.

Not sure why someone would remove all the trim and hide the holes, yet put a ZL2 hood and spoilers on it.

[R68GTO]

Concealing a theft could be one of the reasons but I'm guessing you already vetted that out. Some people just like a "clean look" of the body lines without interruption, adding spoilers and ZL2 hood would enhance the body line profile IMO.

[x33rs]

Yeah, when I put the car back on the road a few years ago one of the first things I did was stop at the DMV. Since Arizona purges records of cars that haven't been registered for 10 years or more they had nothing on it. As if the car didn't exist. I had to pay a fee for them to recreate it in the system. Part of that process was them researching the vin looking for leans and making sure it hasn't been reported stolen or used on another car. That took a few days. It came back with a clean slate.

But of course when you ask them what kind of history the vin returned, they act like they don't know and won't give any details.

[carnut4life]

Maybe they spray bombed it in primer when they put the Garnet Red hood and spoilers on it? Garnet Red on Fathom Green would've stood out like a sore thumb.

[William]

If that is a production ducted hood, check it for the reinforcing 'pyramids' added late April. Hood would pucker at the base of the plenum from being closed.

Early hoods don't have them. Hard to find a good original.

[x33rs]

Originally Posted by William

If that is a production ducted hood, check it for the reinforcing 'pyramids' added late April. Hood would pucker at the base of the plenum from being closed.

Early hoods don't have them. Hard to find a good original.

Hey Bill, I was just talking about you earlier

I'm looking under the hood and don't see an area that quite looks like your picture, so what I'll do is snap a couple pics and send them to your email. Maybe you could tell me if this is a late or early hood.

[x33rs]

Originally Posted by carnut4life

Maybe they spray bombed it in primer when they put the Garnet Red hood and spoilers on it? Garnet Red on Fathom Green would've stood out like a sore thumb.

That's a solid possibility. They simply shot primer right over the garnet red and black stripes. Basically on the top, and when I opened the hood I saw some red and I could see the black stripes extending down over the edge slightly. So when I started stripping it, the primer was very thin, and the red and black stripes came out, and under that was factory black oxide. The bottom side still retains it's original black finish in great shape, overall it's a very nice hood that appears it came off a desert south western car.