It took me a bit to get some computer time, but I am chipping away at it.
Last saturday I headed down to NJMP New Jersey MotorSports Park down in Millville for the FuelFest event. Its definitely a more modern era car show, without the typical 1950's music that we are used to. They have this same event in Vegas, Tokyo, LA, Dallas, etc but this was the first year of it. I hadn't even known about it happening actually, until the owner's of the Mega Bucks camaro reached out to me, so I was glad to add it to my calendar. Millville about 140 miles to get down there, and I had just had the car making pulls on a chassis dyno the day beforehand, but I knew how meaningful it was that I go see the car. The ride down was great and my car enjoyed the miles with no issues; spend so much of the drive with the converter locked up in 4th gear just cruising. Arrived and parked, noticed that there were people lining up for time on the track, roll-racing on the straightaway, an australian style burnout box was setup, a huge music/dj stage, and LOTS of imported cars. In fact there were probably only 4 camaro's there total, but one of them was the 1975 that I knew was the show stopper. Got parked by some GT3 porche and rice ripper but also saw they were doing a media photoshoot of the Fast and Furious franchise look-alike cars.
Walked over to where I spotted the unmistakable back-end of the car from a far distance away and checked it out. Its still unimaginable to me that the car lived so untouched and undamaged for all those years. They did a tremendous job, because there is not even a hint of a problem with the paintwork, the fiberglass, the underbelly, and everything. All the colors still popped in your eyes just right, and you gota remember, there is no clear coat on this, this was single stage with hand painted stripes on top. Also, the best aspect of this car is that you can tell it was a Pro Street car that was built during the 1980's-1990's era instead of a the modern Pro Street revival style. All the visible mechanical parts are what was top-tier back then, and there is no hint of a ultra modern ignition system or fans, or underpinnings. They took a lot of care getting the metal work in the interior all buffed out to a high polish and really put a lot into it. The old seats were replaced and they came out freakin awesome; they actually just bolted them onto the car the day before the event! The headliner had developed an issue while in storage so they got a really nice custom fit headliner around the modified interior panels and roll bar. Real nice. The brake system had to be redone because of clogged lines, so master cylinder, lines, etc. A new carburetor was ordered but never installed because after minimal effort to get the engine cranked over, the current carb worked just fine! They street drove the car for some miles and then drove it into the carshow, which is just badass.
We spent a good amount of time talking about things more in detail and at the end of the show I moved my car over and took some photos. If there had been room on the other side I would have parked behind it, but maybe another time when the sunlight is better as well. They plan to take it to plenty of shows in the future so you might see it out there collecting trophys and turning heads. I will continue to keep in touch with them and probably wind up at an event again one day soon but I consider my "quest of locating the car and seeing it" to be complete. I sent my family members some of the photos and everyone was blown away that the car looked exactly the same as 1993ish when it was sold. The car is going to be enjoyed and I'm glad about that. I have no current "quest" to own it at this point in life, but knowing its out there does keep the thought in the back of my mind. I have a full plate for years to come with life so its not sensible for me to even envision adding more. The owners and I do have an understanding that the car is meaningful to me and that goes a long way in this case.
Drove home late into the night and took a longer route because it turned into an hour of heavy rainfall downpour. In total the car did 311 miles that day, and I couldn't even find one issue or nuance with it the whole trip.
That was a lifetime bucket-list day right there!
