'My Gen 5 Story'

[Welker2]

After seeing the revised thread on ‘Why we and everyone else loves this car’, I thought it would be interesting and fun to start a thread where individuals could tell their Camaro story. I’m sure there are a lot of great ones; here’s mine to get it started ..

My enthusiasm for hot rods, muscle cars and sports cars go back to earliest memories. As a young child I spent a lot of time building models, everything from street rods to muscle and sports cars to all types/styles of race cars. As a pre-teen and teen I spent a lot of time in the garage with my step father and/or his friends building street machines. At the age of 15, while all my friends wanted or had Trans AMs I wanted a Camaro; at the age of 16 I saw my first Corvette up close and a personal, a 1973 coupe, and my love has been split between the two ever since. Had my first Camaro at 20, a 1979 coupe, and my first Corvette at 21, a 1972 coupe. In the years since I’ve owned, restored and modified a few of both, but the one that holds the most meaning to me and I will always treasure more than any that have come before or will come after is my 2013 SS. Yes, it is an awesome looking car with a great combination of heritage and modern muscle car styling; sure, it stands out from most other vehicles on the roads and gets lots of positive attention; but these are all my secondary reasons for treasuring this one above all others.

In 2013 I was battling a very rare cancer; I had just finished some very radical chemo and radiation treatments to shrink the tumor small enough to be removed without having to remove both my tongue and voice box (no the cancer was not from smoking or using tobacco of any kind) or worse. Now I had to wait 4-6 months to see if it was successful enough for the operation. On one of my ‘down’ days, my wife, who I met in high school and shares my enthusiasm for cars, suggest we take a ride and check out cars. After checking out and taking the SS for a test drive, I was in a great mode and she could see how much I really liked it. It was at that point she turned to me and said, ‘buy it, you could use a new car and you’ll need one you can spend time modifying after your surgery.’ I did, the surgery a few months later was a complete success and I’ve been cancer free ever since. So, whenever I walk out to the Camaro, it brings me back to that day .. the day I saw that GM got it right when they brought the Camaro back, the day my wife brought me out of a dark a place, the day my love and admiration for the girl I had met some 40 years earlier grew beyond what any words can express.

[Moto-Mojo]

Wow, Welker, that’s an inspiring story. Mine is a little more mundane. I too am a child of the ‘Revell’ hot rod models, Rat Fink, et al era. I was awestruck by the 70’s Corvettes but oddly, never really a Camaro fan. Fast fwd MANY years and a divorce. My 2nd wife mentioned she liked the new Camaro. I still hadn’t come around but bought her the 45th LT automatic. As I become more and more fond of her new Camaro, I couldn't get past the ‘lack of muscle’ I knew from my roots.

Some time later I was rented a 2SS RS in Seattle because all but premium cars were rented out. I drove it to and from Wenatchee from Seattle and simply had to have it. Well, one like it. So I came home, broke the good/bad news to her that we were getting a new Camaro. To this day she’ll swear we sold ‘hers’ and bought me one. She may not be too wrong!

[xstuntman]

As a kid in the late 60s/early 70s we had to use our imaginations for entertainment so i engineered Hot Wheels race tracks all over the place. Six foot drops, double loops, air gaps, etc. As a teen my first cars were fast and fun which always has a price although they did have big back seats for the real entertainment.

Now that i'm pushing near retirement its more about show than go plus the realization that growing up really sucks and i refuse on general principals to mature. Old guys are cranky and depressing!

I never gave up on collecting a few Hot Wheels along the way and both car and shop show it. I wonder if anyone makes concrete paint in Hot Wheels orange?

[GrandAmGT]

Originally Posted by Welker2

After seeing the revised thread on ‘Why we and everyone else loves this car’, I thought it would be interesting and fun to start a thread where individuals could tell their Camaro story. I’m sure there are a lot of great ones; here’s mine to get it started ..

My enthusiasm for hot rods, muscle cars and sports cars go back to earliest memories. As a young child I spent a lot of time building models, everything from street rods to muscle and sports cars to all types/styles of race cars. As a pre-teen and teen I spent a lot of time in the garage with my step father and/or his friends building street machines. At the age of 15, while all my friends wanted or had Trans AMs I wanted a Camaro; at the age of 16 I saw my first Corvette up close and a personal, a 1973 coupe, and my love has been split between the two ever since. Had my first Camaro at 20, a 1979 coupe, and my first Corvette at 21, a 1972 coupe. In the years since I’ve owned, restored and modified a few of both, but the one that holds the most meaning to me and I will always treasure more than any that have come before or will come after is my 2013 SS. Yes, it is an awesome looking car with a great combination of heritage and modern muscle car styling; sure, it stands out from most other vehicles on the roads and gets lots of positive attention; but these are all my secondary reasons for treasuring this one above all others.

In 2013 I was battling a very rare cancer; I had just finished some very radical chemo and radiation treatments to shrink the tumor small enough to be removed without having to remove both my tongue and voice box (no the cancer was not from smoking or using tobacco of any kind) or worse. Now I had to wait 4-6 months to see if it was successful enough for the operation. On one of my ‘down’ days, my wife, who I met in high school and shares my enthusiasm for cars, suggest we take a ride and check out cars. After checking out and taking the SS for a test drive, I was in a great mode and she could see how much I really liked it. It was at that point she turned to me and said, ‘buy it, you could use a new car and you’ll need one you can spend time modifying after your surgery.’ I did, the surgery a few months later was a complete success and I’ve been cancer free ever since. So, whenever I walk out to the Camaro, it brings me back to that day .. the day I saw that GM got it right when they brought the Camaro back, the day my wife brought me out of a dark a place, the day my love and admiration for the girl I had met some 40 years earlier grew beyond what any words can express.

Thank you for sharing such a personal story. I'm very glad to hear that you are cancer-free!

[ADVMax]

Welker, awesome story!

I'm a cancer survivor as well, went through chemo and radiation last year - I do not recommend it as a weight loss program. Mine began at the base of my tongue and migrated into one lymph node, the treatment got all of it. Mine was due to HPV, not smoking.

I bad-assed through treatment, went to the office every day, no feeding tube (which they almost insisted on) but after treatments were done I spent 3 weeks at home recovering from the treatment. I'm a bit over a year out of treatment and still not over it, nasty stuff.

I am (was) a BMW Master Tech and was the biggest BMW freak in the world. I had an '04 325 track car and an '85 635, they were pretty neat cars but the 325 pissed me off pretty bad - it's the car that made me come to the realization that new BMWs are junk. The 635 was going to be the last car but the idea of investing 40 - 45K into a full build with the result being a car that might be worth 20K to the right person just didn't work.

I had a major head explosion over the whole thing (cancer treatment will make you a bit bitchy), traded the 325 in on the 2010 Camaro SS, sold the 635 and have been a very happy driver ever since.

I had a '73 Z28 and a '76 Trans Am 455 with 4 speed, the new platform for the Gen 5 Camaro makes those once awesome cars pale in comparison.

Wonder how many others here got their Gen 5 as a "I survived cancer" gift to themselves?

[Welker2]

ADVMax, thanks for sharing your story and happy to hear your treatments were a success.

[BehindBlueI's]

I also played with Hot Wheels, built models, etc. I salivated over the JC Whitney catalog before I had a car to start to modify. Don't blame me, the Internet wasn't a thing yet and JC Whitney was the bee's knees.

I bought an '85 Camaro in high school, one of the worst Camaros ever. A 2.8L Berlinetta but it at least had the stick shift. Once I joined the Army I had a bit more disposable income. That began a journey that included an '89 Iroc-Z, a '80 Corvette, and finally a '97 Z-28. I sold it before I moved out of the country for contracting work and then didn't have a sports car again for about a decade. I tinkered with motorcycles for a bit, but gave those up as well when city traffic just got to taking the fun out of riding.

Like a few others posted, I had one of those reminders of mortality. A suspect in a case my partner was working fled from officers after shooting one officer at the original stop (non-fatally, luckily). That turned into an ongoing active shooter incident. The suspect fled and fired shots at pursuing officers. He had several guns and magazines in the car and continued to fire. He eventually crashed and continued to fight from his car. He was hit several times by other officers but none were putting him out of the fight, he just went back to his car to get more ammunition and began shooting again. I ended up being one of the officers who closed with the car when he went silent. He lured us in to ambush us. I ended up shooting him through the chest twice when he brought a gun up at the K9 officer.

One of the effects of that sort of life or death moment is it makes routine life pale and bland for quite awhile afterward. Everything is boring, nothing seems to hold your interest, nothing seems to be worth paying attention to. I started really wanting a sports car again. It wasn't my first brush with that sort of thing and I knew not to make any decisions until I returned to a sense of normalcy. After about four months I still had the urge. I test drove quite a few cars. Mustang, Charger, Challenger, Corvette, Camaro. In the end the 5th Gen Camaro edged the competition. Interior room, price to performance ratio, retro look and interior, it all just clicked for me. So, I bought it.

Sometimes when I drive it I remember why I bought it. I remember that I'm alive and that he's dead and that we won. That I won. I think about my buddies who haven't won and who we've put in the ground, who've paid with their lives at home and abroad so we can live the life we do. Then I have some fun to celebrate survival and memories.

[Welker2]

Originally Posted by BehindBlueI's

I also played with Hot Wheels, built models, etc. I salivated over the JC Whitney catalog before I had a car to start to modify. Don't blame me, the Internet wasn't a thing yet and JC Whitney was the bee's knees.

I bought an '85 Camaro in high school, one of the worst Camaros ever. A 2.8L Berlinetta but it at least had the stick shift. Once I joined the Army I had a bit more disposable income. That began a journey that included an '89 Iroc-Z, a '80 Corvette, and finally a '97 Z-28. I sold it before I moved out of the country for contracting work and then didn't have a sports car again for about a decade. I tinkered with motorcycles for a bit, but gave those up as well when city traffic just got to taking the fun out of riding.

Like a few others posted, I had one of those reminders of mortality. A suspect in a case my partner was working fled from officers after shooting one officer at the original stop (non-fatally, luckily). That turned into an ongoing active shooter incident. The suspect fled and fired shots at pursuing officers. He had several guns and magazines in the car and continued to fire. He eventually crashed and continued to fight from his car. He was hit several times by other officers but none were putting him out of the fight, he just went back to his car to get more ammunition and began shooting again. I ended up being one of the officers who closed with the car when he went silent. He lured us in to ambush us. I ended up shooting him through the chest twice when he brought a gun up at the K9 officer.

One of the effects of that sort of life or death moment is it makes routine life pale and bland for quite awhile afterward. Everything is boring, nothing seems to hold your interest, nothing seems to be worth paying attention to. I started really wanting a sports car again. It wasn't my first brush with that sort of thing and I knew not to make any decisions until I returned to a sense of normalcy. After about four months I still had the urge. I test drove quite a few cars. Mustang, Charger, Challenger, Corvette, Camaro. In the end the 5th Gen Camaro edged the competition. Interior room, price to performance ratio, retro look and interior, it all just clicked for me. So, I bought it.

Sometimes when I drive it I remember why I bought it. I remember that I'm alive and that he's dead and that we won. That I won. I think about my buddies who haven't won and who we've put in the ground, who've paid with their lives at home and abroad so we can live the life we do. Then I have some fun to celebrate survival and memories.

Wow .. Thank you for sharing your story. Thankfully you nor any of your fellow officers were fatally wounded. I salute you and all your fellow officers for what you all do and risk every day

[RJT Impala]

Originally Posted by Welker2

After seeing the revised thread on ‘Why we and everyone else loves this car’, I thought it would be interesting and fun to start a thread where individuals could tell their Camaro story. I’m sure there are a lot of great ones; here’s mine to get it started ..

Chief Welker, Thanks for sharing your story and congrats on beating "C"!

I grew up around guys that had fast cars in the early '60s--everything from '58 Impalas w/348 and 3 deuces to '64 GTOs and 413 Belvederes--and later 426 Hemi GTXs and 396 Chevelles. My first car was a '56 Chevy BelAir 2-dr hardtop that I dropped a 300hp 327 into and converted from auto to 3-speed manual ('68 enroute to first duty station in USAF). At first duty station, I flew with a guy who had just purchased a '69 Z28--my introduction to Camaros. Whenever we went TDY from McClellan to Castle (no one else liked to fly on the B52), we would take his car--and he always claimed he was too tired to drive and turned the car over to me. When Camaros came back into production, my wife and I jokingly told each other that we would buy one at some point in the future. We set the target for April 2012 and selected IBM as the color we wanted--we planned to order 2LT RS with sunroof. Unfortunately, the earthquake in Japan curtailed production of IBM due to the metallic manufactured there. We immediately went into a search mode via internet looking for a car that matched our desires; finally found one just north of Dallas (170 miles away) about 10:00pm one Wednesday evening. I sent an email querying availability status and was preparing for follow-up phone call the following morning when I received a call from a salesman from the dealer. Car was still in their showroom and we negotiated a deal over the phone; made deposit on credit card to hold the car until Saturday. Saturday morning found us in the dealership parking lot before they opened. Car still sits in my garage; presently has just over 45K miles.

[Crankshaft]

I grew up on a Ford Family with my dad owning pretty much Ford trucks and vans so i grew up liking what i saw most like we all do. Early 2000's i started being more of an enthusiast than a fanboy and took an interest in late 60's and early 70's B body Mopars but always keep on a look out for a Foxbody as they were still common and relatively fast so my dad told me a customer of his had a 90 for sale; took a trip to simply look as i was unemployed at the time and turned out he also had a 91 Z28 that he was selling. I ended up with the Camaro instead a bit later but being stick i never really drove it as much as i should because as Shelby put it "why row a boat when you can get a motor in one", so eventually i sold it. Early this year I found a 2012 Mustang GT Convertible in Dallas Tx which is a good 3 hours from here at $11000 so i called and made an appointment to look at it during the weekend, need not say they called me and told me the car had been sold but they had an SS for sale if i was interested but i turned it down since there were at lest 10 in Houston with less miles and lower price than what they were offering. A dealer i delivered to happened to get in a 2011 1SS in with relatively high miles but at a lower price than anyone in the area and they were only 4 miles from my house so i went to look at it but did not get locked down. Went back the next day and i almost got the biggest screwing one could get as my $10,995 car was being written off for $21000 after interest due to warranties and packages i was never offered; left the car there for 3 days until we "compromised" at $14k which is still pisses me off till this day. So that pretty much is the story on how the two times i tried to get a Mustang i ended up with Camaros, honestly aside from the BS during the sale there isnt much i would do differently as the Camaro suits me more than a Mustang or a Challenger although i saw a 16 Challenger the other day with a black hood and reminded me of the old Dusters. I did say that i was getting a newer car so i wouldnt have to spend so much time wrenching on it and i probably thrown more money at this car in the last year than the other 3 vehicles we own combined.

[Aqua Blue RS/SS]

Hope you guys dealing with cancer can Keep it beat. My mom is a leukemia survivor, but not with out a heavy toll on her long term well being. My prayers go out to all those who have to deal with it in any way at all. Thanks to our folks in the military and in blue who risk so much to keep this nation safe to the best of their abilities! Speeding tickets suck, but it sure is better than the lawless alternative.

Me, well my story like so many starts with my dad. When I was a kid my dad had an 86 lower option carbed 305 Camaro that he bought brand new. He also had a ‘71 K10. He is a mechanic and I spent a ton of my childhood following him around and hanging out with him while he worked on both the Camaro and the truck. I followed his footsteps and work as an engine builder in the oil field now. Naturally I’ve always been drawn to all generations of Camaro, Corvette, and GM trucks. When I was in high school I bought my ‘57 3100 and he and I built that one from the frame up. That was about the time 5th gen concept came out. I saw the concept car in person in the fall of 07, not too long after I had watched transformers in theaters. I knew the day would come when I would have one.

I saw my first 5th gen, a 2010 transformers edition in the summer of 09. Love at first site. The lines, the sound, the stance, it was all perfect. Fast forward a few years and I had seen several ABM cars in different places and knew that was the color I wanted. I also wanted a 2SS/RS with factory gfx. Being married and in my early 20’s it just wasn’t in the cards to get one yet. I bought a ‘72 K20 in 2015 and began building that truck up and have enjoyed sharing memories with my 2 kids and wife in it. Something was still missing. I decided to tear that truck down to the frame in 2017. It should be back on the road this spring.

In 2018, financially it was finally a good time to start looking for the missing piece of the puzzle. I got lucky and found the exact car I wanted with decent mileage not long after I started looking. I watched for over a month on auto trader but it was priced several thousand higher than blue book at a non negotiating dealer. So I waited patiently until they dropped the price to a place I was comfortable with. 2 days after the price drop I drove to salt lake and brought it home. My wife and kids love riding in “blue” as my 3 year old son named it. (After blue from Jurassic world) he in particular always wants to take “daddy’s cuu-maro” every where we go. I love being able to create similar memories with them that I have of my child hood. The car and the old trucks will never leave as long as I’m alive. They have already been assigned out in the event something was to happen to me. GM got both the 67-72 trucks and the 5th Gen Camaros right.

[byrds8]

Guess mine starts with my Dad also. He loved old school muscle cars. Growing up there was a 69 Chevelle SS sitting in the driveway. He also owned a custom 1979 Pontiac Grand Prix with turbine mag wheels. So his love of muscle cars passed on to me. My first ride was a 1979 Berlinetta Camaro that we fixed up together. I paid $1200 cash for the car when I was 17. She had 130 on the speedo and would do all and more. Had a lot of great times with and in that ride. She got hit in '94 by a '92 Ford Explorer. So I bought my friends old '78 Camaro with a straight six just to still have one. Fast forward to now though and I am on my 6th Camaro. Although there are many a day I miss my original, this one out of all the ones in between, is probably as much loved as the first.