Happy 50th Birthday to my 1972 Z28

[suds788]

Happy Birthday to your "Z" - great looking car!!!! My SS also turns 50 this yr. Has been with me since 1983 (39 yrs.) can't ask for a better ride. Just finished it's restore (or as close as I could get it) this last Sept. Pretty sure I have past the point of no return on ever getting rid of her!!!!!

 

[xten]

Happy Birthday to the Z, G! She sure has aged gracefully. Timeless. And she can still do everything well! I too really like the white interior and colo(u)r. If I could have found a white interior for my silver one for less than a kajillion $, you can bet it would have white stripes. Hope she has many more!

 

[Jodi]

Happy B-Day! She's a Gem... Lots of love went into her and it shows.
I think she wants a set of shaft rockers for B-Day present .

 

[COPO]

No more cream yellow. I wonder what that looked like.

 

[G72Zed]

That is cool, my 72's birthday has passed [I don't know the exact date] but it has a 11d build and was sold 12/23/71,I too am 56, and have had mine since 1993,my wifeys[my high school sweetheart] 67 we've had since 1987 I believe.I figure if you;ve spent more than half of your life with some thing its a keeper Beautiful color love the white interior! I'll go out to the garage and wish my car a belated 50'th Thanks for sharing-Steve!!

Guess we have lots in common 72'z'steve eh.... and wow, cool story on your and the wifeys ride as well, and totally agree on the "keeper" thing as well.

When I first did the interior, I could not find many examples of the 1972 white interior, so I went with what I thought would look OK, thought it looked like a penguin at first, but it grew on me, it turned out ok.

I'm glad I posted this, so nice to here the cool stories from other Nasty members.....

 

[G72Zed]

That's awesome. Happy Birthday to your car!
I have a 1965 GTO that rolled out of the factory doors in Pontiac MI on the same day as I was born.
We celebrate our birthday together every year.

Wow, that's real cool, love the stories being shared.

And you have some nice rides NTSTLKR, glad you joined the Nasty family

 

[G72Zed]

Happy Birthday to the Z, G! She sure has aged gracefully. Timeless. And she can still do everything well! I too really like the white interior and colo(u)r. If I could have found a white interior for my silver one for less than a kajillion $, you can bet it would have white stripes. Hope she has many more!

Thanks xten, I'm glad I went white, and bought most of the parts when the CND was par, or more than the US green back. With the price of some of the parts today...I don't know if I could swing the same build today, it's crazy.

Happy B-Day! She's a Gem... Lots of love went into her and it shows.
I think she wants a set of shaft rockers for B-Day present .

Thanks Jodi, and your right, lots of love...and time, I tried to keep track of the hours at first, but just lost track of time LOL, just as well, I did not watch TV for like 14 years LOL!!

And you know your on a good site with like minded people who get the term "rocker porn" LOL, I'm still working on convincing myself to pull the 2,400$ trigger, due to the uniqueness of my heads (49cc/21.5*) it's a one off deal with T&D.

 

[G72Zed]

No more cream yellow. I wonder what that looked like.

Nope, I wanted my custom pearl blue and white stripes. If the car was numbers matching, and all original...then it might have been a different outcome as the rarity might have justified it.

FWIW, and those that care to read in the history a little further, here's the story.

Here's the only pic I got, it's of the original owner and was taken approx. in summer of 1972. By an absolutely extreme coincidence, I knew an older gentleman who I was buying parts from when I first got the car in 2000, and was telling him I bought this old 1972 Z28 of my buddy who bought it about 8 years before.

He asked if I was sure it was a '72 Z, and mentioned that GM made only 2575 of those, and less than 10% made it to Canada, he knew his stuff about these old Z28's no doubt.

I really did not know that much, but knew to check the 5th digit on the VIN to see if it was an L. He asked me to check the paint code on the TT and get back to him. I called him back with the TT info, and confirmed the paint code from when I stripped it down.

He then said to look at the rear trans tunnel just above the rear u joint area after I pull the interior to see if there where a bunch of half moon markings that were bronzed up, I'm like WTF are you talking about, did these cars come like this, if not, how would you even know of this damage, that's impossible.

Sure enough, upon removing the carpet/jute padding and cleaning it up with thinner, the half moon bronzing was there. I returned to buy a few trim parts from him a few months later and told him of the rear tunnel markings, he said, "wait here, I'll be back" he left and came back from his house, had a few pics of this 1972 Z28, cream yellow, black stripes with 2 guys sitting on the fenders, and one leaning against it (pic att.)

"Here's your car...I was there when my good friend Dave picked it up, it's an M22 car as well, it's very rare, best get the documentation from George in Oshawa to prove what you got" then he said "you will see, it comes from Rockland, and back in the day in Ottawa, if you wanted COPO's or special high performance, you went to that GM dealer in Rockland".

Sure enough, when I got the GM documentation, he was 100% right on everything, what are the chances of that happening!!

He said there were only a few 1972 Z28's in the Ottawa Valley back then, and the M22 made it more rare, and he thinks it was the only cream yellow one around. It was raced from when new, but suffered oil consumption issues from day 1. So the heads came off, and were rebuilt and gone through very carefully, custom valve job and got milled down to bring up the CR.

Still oil usage, so the dealer pulled the engine and put in new high CR forged pistons and rings and honed the block, still issues, they pulled the original intake, and it had porosity issues in the casting, it was sucking oil from the lifter valley side, new GM intake, they jetted the carb, re-curved dizzy, headers and cheater slicks and went to the track where it clicked off high 12's at 102+ mph, he said it was as quick as the 1970 Z he used to own and race.

He was in the car when the rear u-joint and drive shaft let go, that's how he knew, they raced this car all the time and was quick for the day.

And that's the story one my 1972 Z28. Never wrote this down, so I'll print this for a keepsake for my boys when I'm gone.

Cheers fella's

 

[Oldskool62]

Awesome story.

 

[1978 Z/28]

happy birthday