I know this is an F body website....

[Untamed]

Not in production. Several after market companies touted verts where they would buy the car brand new for you then mod it with the vert. So essentially you got a new car with a professional convertable system, but it wasn't factory installed.

[jola]

ummm, my dad worked for gm for like 30 years, so i naturally have a bias against anything not-gm (except mopar, cuz they're just awesome) let alone anything not-american (which is kind of ironic, since my car was assembled in canada). he owned a first gen and 2nd gen camaro, and an 85 TA, and he loved them. he sold the camaros before i was born, but i remember the TA quite well. i loved riding in that car, and that's also when i fell in love with t-tops. anyways, when it came time for me to buy a car to commute to school with, i wanted something enjoyable to drive and not too expensive, with decent gas mileage (which is why i bought the 6 instead of an 8, but i don't think it makes too much difference). originally i wanted to get a 3rd gen TA, or a 5.0 mustang, or a pickup, but i couldn't really find a good deal on my limited amount of time, so i went with a 95 firebird. 3.4 L isn't the fastest, but its a huge improvement over the bonneville that i was driving in high school.

my next car will be a hemi 'cuda.

[qwikz28]

Originally Posted by Untamed

Not in production. Â*Several after market companies touted verts where they would buy the car brand new for you then mod it with the vert. Â*So essentially you got a new car with a professional convertable system, but it wasn't factory installed.

my buddy is a mechanic and he always tells me that unless you HAVE to have a numbers matching car, always buy a hardtop and convert it to vert. thats probably what i would do cause i would probably drive the car more then most drive theirs (ahem jon).

[bad64chevelle]

Originally Posted by qwikz28

my buddy is a mechanic and he always tells me that unless you HAVE to have a numbers matching car, always buy a hardtop and convert it to vert. thats probably what i would do cause i would probably drive the car more then most drive theirs (ahem jon).

ummm why the hell would you convert a HT into a Convertible? I have seen hundreds of hack jobs when people try to do that and they look like ****! Ever watch Boyd Coddington try to make the 37 ford into a convertible? yeah I have seen the car in person and it looks horrible! And I drive my car enough, trust me! I dont take it everywhere for a few reasons. A) There are too many ******** on the road and if they hit it, i will kill them. Dont bust my chops about driving my car though. That thing went to Hershey PA, West Chester PA, and a few places that are quite a distance away before the car had 200 miles on it! Four hour drives turning 4600 RPMs the whole way is always fun!

[bad64chevelle]

Originally Posted by unstable bob gable

You are unstable bob's friend! You have good taste in cars, you are a burly dude, and you have a cool "jazz man" beard! unstable bob gives you 2 thumbs up, on one hand! Â*

Dat color looks really purple-ish in da pict, but I believe it is called "rose wood" or sumpthin' like dat. I gotta find out fer sure, so I can get me some touch up paint! It is supposed to be the orig. color...

Only reason I asked is because my buddy has a 87 Grand National painted "Blasberry" -one of those flip flop color changing paints- and it looks alot like that in the picture.

[Ian]

Originally Posted by bad64chevelle

Ever watch Boyd Coddington try to make the 37 ford into a convertible? yeah I have seen the car in person and it looks horrible!

I hate boyd coddington

He is a crappy fabricator and I lost all respect for him when he lost the rights to his own name

[bad64chevelle]

I would agree.

[coldkilla]

wait, how the hell did he lose the rights to his own damn name?!

[2001orangess]

Originally Posted by coldkilla

wait, how the hell did he lose the rights to his own damn name?!

kinda funny and distrubing at the same time

[Ian]

He is the crappiest buisness man of all time and a few years ago went bankrupt and had to sell the rights to his own name. He eventually bought the rights back, but come one, that guy has no place in the world of hot rodding

[jims69camaro]

when i was a kid of about 10, my next door neighbor's son (17 or 18, a real loser) got ahold of a '69 convertible pace car. it was his daily driver, and i witnessed the car's destruction one day... seems the car was finicky about starting. some days it would, some days it wouldn't. one day, i guess he was really frustrated about it not starting, so he beat the **** out of it with the jack. now, some of you know what an older bumper jack looks like, some don't. it's long, heavy, and swings like a sledge hammer if the jack is at the end of the rail. he had holes in the hood, ripped the top to **** and the car had to be towed away. i cried.

my grandfather was in WWII. he wasn't stationed in hawaii, thank the gods, but he had friends that were and after december 7 were no more. my father was born during the war and he always had a good relationship with my grandfather, so a lot of my grandfather's traits got passed on to him. one of them was a love for american iron. my dad owned several cars, including a white 396 chevelle. after i started living with him, i also began to appreciate cars that went fast. when my dad sold the '65 fairlane, i cried.

the first car i drove was the '72 gran ville. we swapped in a 455 from a trans am because my sister ran it out of oil. the transmission from the TA went into the gran ville, too. it was a sweet ride and it was my first transportation. so, given my appreciation for things fast and my love for american cars, naturally the first car i tried to buy was a camaro. my dad told me if i bought the car that i would have to sleep in it, so i held off on buying a car for a while. in the meantime, i drove his girlfriend's '77 cutlass. it was baby blue with a landau roof, but it moved pretty well. about a year later i did buy a car: an '86 fiero SE. it had a 6 cylinder motor, which was the largest motor you could get from the factory, and it moved pretty well. one day, lined up against a late '80s firebird, i was served. i don't think i ever felt as humiliated as i had on that day, because i thought my car was fast. i think i even cried.

the fiero developed a problem with the air sensor and the exhaust had become a little too loud, so i took it to the dealership because it was still under warranty. or so i thought. the car still had enough value to trade it in, though, and my salesman worked me. he sent me out on a test drive in a stock, v-6 firebird. when i came back, he laughed when i told him the car doesn't move very well (i think the fiero would take it, hands down, in a 1/4 mile). then he sent me out in a base model v-8 bird. i came back, pretty much certain that i would be driving my fiero home, because the 'birds he had sent me out in couldn't get out of their own way. then he sent me out in an '88 formula. now, this is what i call fast (for its time, it was). it had a limited slip rear, 305 efi, 5 speed manual, low profile tires, roll up windows and manual locks. talk about a throw-back to the days of hot rodding... when i signed the loan papers, i think people as far away as ten miles or so could see my smile. the woman i was with was a little older and a little more experienced than i was. when we split up, the formula stayed with her. i had put the car in her name for insurance purposes. i cried a lot.

fast forward a few years later. my mechanic was building an IROC. i liked to call them eye-rot, because everyone and their brother owned one, and they were definitely guido-mobiles (italian, mid-20s, wife beater with gold chains). he said he had a car that i could buy for $800. i looked it over, noticed it was a v-6 car with a 350 swapped into it, the hood didn't match the rest of the car (he bought that car for the hood, which was one of those ugly daytona jobbers), but it was fast. i paid him and took the '87 camaro home to my wife. it was for her, i said, so she could get back and forth to work, i said. she said she wasn't going to drive it because the hood didn't match the car, so i had a new toy. i was so happy, i cried.

a few years later, i was manager of a furniture store. one day i took a wrong turn on my daily trek to the bank. i passed a mechanic's shop that had two '69 camaros in front. one was a black SS, the other was an orange base model. i bought the orange one for cheap and began my long voyage to restoring it. i am not done yet, but i have a car that i have loved since i was 10 years old. about the only thing that would make me cry about this one would be losing it. i am hanging on very tightly.

i will not drive a japanese car. or, for that matter, any import. i see guys old enough to have served in WWII and the korean konflict and i wonder how they sleep at night knowing they are supporting those countries' economies. i will not allow anyone close to me drive a jap car. sometimes i win, sometimes i am not so successful (my step-sons). my wife tried to get me to buy her an isuzu or a toyota. i told her she could own one of those right after she divorced me. as long as it was my money, she was going to drive an american (or as close to american as i can get) car. that's why she is driving a Liberty and not a 4Runner or a Rodeo. i kid around sometimes, saying things like in 50 years people will be driving Afghani cars. i am only half-kidding, though, because i know it could happen. and people's memory about our country is oh-so-short. i, for one, will never forget Pearl Harbor or Korea or the World Trade Center. if i am the only one who remembers, then i will stay busy reminding other people about it.

[BigAls87Z28]

from 70 to 86 there was no factory vert Camaros.

[SteveR]

My story is short. Ever since I was a little kid I loved muscle cars. I had models, matchbox cars, etc. I wanted a car that would go fast and make little kids scared. My first car was a '70 Firebird Formula 400 Ram Air I got when I turned 17 from a guy that lived near me. I worked on it until I got my license and I've owned like five or six f-bodies since. I've always had 2nd gens. up until the Hawk which I got to use as a daily driver. I've owned other cars as well like a '66 GTO 389, '69 1/2 Road Runner 440, and a '71 Charger Super Bee 383. Through them all, I felt that the f-body community was always the coolest and least retarded.