The Great '74 Headlight Bezel Investigation

72-Z28#matching said:

My 74 LT had the black sugar scoops as they called them. But this car had been owned by a GM engineer I was told by the 2nd owner who I bought it from, and had some modifications done to it. E.g. it had a Z28 horn button on the steering wheel, the blacked out grill, and HEI ignition (which was standard in 75, but may have been installed in late 74 - not sure).

I've attached a couple pictures from the Michael Lamm book, The Great Camaro, showing 74's. The assembly line pic. is of the Van Nuys plant. It shows what looks like the std. bezels.

Click to expand...

Very cool! Yes, as an automotive engineer myself it's very common to see cars get modified right off the showroom floor. Also, HEI was available for the second half or so of 1974 Camaro production.

Love the assembly line picture - I haven't seen that one before! If you look closely at the black and white promotional photo that car actually appears to have the fully polished version I showed in my first post. Now, that never made it to production (as far as I'm aware) but it's always possible a couple cars slipped out into public hands with those bezels in place!

Yeah, my 74 was one of the best cars I ever had. 1st car with power windows and it was so comfortable to drive. Chevy had finally got rid of the over boosted power steering and had started to put some road feel in. I got it in 1980 while trying to finish college. It was only 6 yrs old and the maroon paint was all faded and flat and looked like primer, the rear clip above the bumper was full of holes, and the driver's door had a big hole at the side view mirror. The previous owner riveted in a piece of sheet metal so the mirror had something to attach to and I bondo'd it up and sprayed it. But that 350 engine and TH350 trans were great. I did have to rebuild the 4 bbl q-jet. I recall having those carb. parts spread out all over a table in the garage. When I got my 72 and rebuilt the Holley I was amazed because there were only like 8 parts!

I finally gave that car away after it had sat rusting in my driveway many yrs to a guy that wanted the engine for his race car. He liked to get the blocks already "seasoned" because I guess the blocks were tougher after many heat cycles. I like to think that engine block is still around somewhere.

Still have a few parts I saved from it.

72-Z28#matching said:

My 74 LT had the black sugar scoops as they called them. But this car had been owned by a GM engineer I was told by the 2nd owner who I bought it from, and had some modifications done to it. E.g. it had a Z28 horn button on the steering wheel, the blacked out grill, and HEI ignition (which was standard in 75, but may have been installed in late 74 - not sure).

I've attached a couple pictures from the Michael Lamm book, The Great Camaro, showing 74's. The assembly line pic. is of the Van Nuys plant. It shows what looks like the std. bezels.

Click to expand...

No 1974 Camaros were built anywhere other than Norwood Ohio according to Nastys ‘74 spec page.

mallard said:

No 1974 Camaros were built anywhere other than Norwood Ohio according to Nastys ‘74 spec page.

Click to expand...

I just checked Lamm's book again and I guess I misunderstood the caption. I'll attach the full pg. photo. It says: "Production at Norwood plant increased with growing Camaro demand. More capacity came with return to F-Car assembly by Van Nuys plant." Since it was showing the 74's in the picture, I thought the caption referred to the 74s. On another pg. (attached) he explains Van Nuys stopped production in 71 and returned in early 76.