If anyone knows someone that bought an LG4 or an L03 new off the factory floor or you bought one yourself, could you find out why they did so? If you bought an LG4 new, you obviously don't care about performance (not brand new anyway). If you don't care about performance, why buy the V8? You get more economy (not hella much) out of the V6 model. So why buy the LG4 at all? Same with the LO3. Why buy something that slow if you have other options? Economy you say? Buy a V6. So I'm wondering why anyone would order these engines with their new car. Yes, the V8's tone can not be replicated so that could be a reason, but that still seem geared towards a performance oriented buyer.

In my case with my LT and with other's as well with certain models like the Berlinetta, The LG4 was the largest V-8 you could get. The LG4 and LO3 do have more torque than the stock six cylinder. There is a noticeable performance increase.

Depending on year, L69 H.O., Crossfire Injection, and Tuned Port Injection were reserved for the Trans Am's, GTA's, Formula's, Z28's, IROC'S, 1LE, and Police Packages. The only desireable V-6 in my opinion is the 1989 Turbo Trans Am engine.

I'm sure if the more "potent" V-8's were offered across the board, then the LG4 and LO3 would be far less and in between and possibly phased out. It more than likely would have been like the early fourth gen's; either the 350 V-8 or V-6 with no "in-between" choices of other eights.

Well, in 1982, if you wanted a 4 speed and a V8, you got the LG4. You had no choice with the Z28. The L03 also was the best you could get for many years in the RS. For some, they would order an IROC-Z with the L03 or LG4 so they could still have the IROC-Z, but without the upcharge of a larger engine. These are the standard engines, the rest were upgrades. People buy "off the shelf" and get some upgrades while getting standard options in other areas.

Scott, now was the 4 speed and LG4 a deliberate corporate snub or was the transmission not up to snuff with the LU5?

Same reason not every Vette buyer gets a Z06/ZR1, every Camaro buyer a ZL1, every Challenger owner an SRT-8, every Mustang owner a Boss 302 or a GT500--price.

Beyond that, they may have got an excellent deal on a Firebird or RS off the lot, or they may not have been able to find what they wanted and settled. They may have needed a car ASAP and got what they could find off the lot immediately. Or, insurance for a top model was too expensive, or they didn't like some of the things on the upper model. Perhaps they wanted a color that wasn't offered on the top model, such as mine.

Lots of reasons...just because someone doesn't get the highest model offered shouldn't relegate them to having to get the lowly V6. Personally I'd prefer a mediocre V8 over a V6 every single day, it just isn't the same if it isn't a V8, no matter how lame it may be. Same goes for the new 300 hp V6 cars...I'll take a weaker V8 over a more powerful V6 all day long.

GM couldn't meet emission's certification with the LU5, 4 speed combo.

I know someone who bought a LG4 Trans Am in '87. They pretty much bought it because they like the way it looked, it was blue & silver with t-tops (a V6 Firebird looked plain by comparison). The 305 did have a nice sound too.

Many of these cars were simply around town cruisers and used for commuting to work. Not everyone cared about 0-60 time and the 1/4 mile. They were mostly made for looking good, and they accomplished that very well.

Not sure if CAFE standards were in effect during the third gen era, but higher performance means worse fuel economy, so more lower performance models are produced to keep in stock on the dealer lots.

Besides, the average consumer cares about how a car looks, and how much it costs, and that's it. These are the people that generate the revenue in the new car business. Charging extra for a higher performance engine just doesn't make sense to this biggest bulge in the car buying demographic. Can be easily confirmed by the guy that lives next door to you right now.

CAFE was in effect, that's why dealer lots were full of LG4/LO3/peanut cammed LB9 cars, with standard 2.73 gears.

I know my 91' was an early production 91' that was used by the dealer as a demo, to showcase the new-for-1991 styling, so since the dealer ordered it for not much else than looking pretty on the lot and to be driven and shown off by salesmen, there was no point in loading it to perform. It got many of the flashy options but it was just a LO3, 700R4, with an open 2.73 rear.

Eseibel67, yours makes the most sense. I can understand that. You're right about the neighbor thing, although the guy to my left has a fully optioned F-150, not a Raptor though. And MY87LT, you brought up something I hadn't thought about. The huge amount of options available on our cars is one of the things that makes them so unique so I guess in a way I should thank the little pooter V8's.

I know that in some instances, dealers would buy a Trans Am or a Z28 with the base engine to keep the price down for the lot. Remember the lower the price, the more people can afford it. I think the LG4 and later LO3 also have better Insurance premiums, and lower license plates if your plates are based upon the initial price of the car. Interestingly my wife's LB9/M5 is rated lower than my LG4/A4...

I think when push comes to shove, that extra $1000 for a car starts hurting when you start piling on the options... Several cars came to $20,000 by the time you got everything on it, and in 1987 money that is $40,000 in today's money (2012)

John

I sold new Chevrolets in 1986 and 1987 and there was some who were intimidated by the assumed complexity of the Tuned Port and the MPFI V6. It looked expensive, so the line of thinking was it would be expensive to fix. A carbureted small block was a safe bet five years down the road. You have to remember "computer" cars were still a new arena when the third gen came out.

Also, the third gen cars transcended age groups. There were a lot of middle aged people who really liked the way they looked, so they bought one. The older buyers would always want the carbed V8. More times than not you would hear, "That should be plenty". For the time, the LG4 in the Z28 and Trans Am sounded good and compared to most other cars of that time ran decent.

The dealership I worked at sold about 120 cars/trucks total a month and usually had 20 or so Camaros in stock. The sales manager was pretty well versed in what to get for stock, so we had some TPI/5-speeds and a couple of 350 cars in 1987. There were a large number of LG4 sport coupes, Berlinettas and LT cars, over half. The large majority always wanted an automatic. And yes, price always played a key part.

Any idea why this was? We know now that the 700R4 is more stout than the T5/WC T5 of the era, but I'm not sure how well known that fact would've been back then...just seems like there should've been more manual cars built.

If you are not old enough, remenber the 1980's were a very different time.
Big reason was cost;
LG4 & LO3 no cost V8 standard on the IROC-Z
LB9 $745 Extra and there may be a dealer discount.
L98 $1045 Extra and NO dealer discount.
In my case the choice was a LB9 with $2000 off list or full price for 350 IROC.

Universally, it always boiled down to convenience. The stick cars always were bought by younger people (18-30), which were fewer in terms of buyer numbers. There were a lot of buyers (30-45) who liked the cars but wanted automatics. There was one exception in 1987 that I recall when a man in his late forties ordered a dark blue TPI/M5 Z28. The ratio of auto cars to stick cars on the lot was about five to one. By that time, the Z28 and the IROC were fairly pricey cars, so it took some decent money to buy them and insure them at that point. It typically took at least a 10% down payment. Insurance prices/ratings on the 3rd gen really got bad by 86-87. It would often be $100-$150 per month for someone under 30, which would many times prove to be a dealbreaker.

Being really into these cars, I paid close attention to them even back then. The sales manager, eventual owner of the dealership, was really into them as well. He had a couple of really neat Z28/IROC demos at the time.

We were talking about them not long ago at a Chevy 100th function they were having at the store. He looked it up and the best year they ever had in terms of Camaro sales was 1984, when they sold 227 Camaros that year. He also discovered that almost two-thirds of them were Z28's and most of them were L69 automatics. He did have some base, low option Camaros with the LG4/M5 combo around so underqualified potential Z28 customers would have a low-cost alternative. I always thought those were pretty neat cars and can remember spending hours walking area Chevy lots comparing Camaros at the time.

It was really neat getting to watch them evolve.

Don't mean to sound sexist, but many women usually prefer an automatic. I'm willing to bet the majority of stick cars went to single males, and those were few.

That is a pretty good point. In two years and close to three dozen Camaro sales, I sold one stick car to a female and it was a '86 base car with a 2.8. I think in total I sold something like 6 or 7 stick cars out of that three dozen, two of which were special customer orders; one IROC convertible and a low option Z28 coupe.

Another thing that was somewhat odd to me at the time was the fact that after '85, you didn't see near as many Z28's or Berlinettas/LT's. It seemed like all the lots had were an IROC or a base car from early '86 on. In '85, there were a lot of Z28 Tuned Port cars on the lots, but they dried up all of sudden when the '86 models came out.

Interesting stories, for sure. I have similar stories from 2002, as I ordered the final Firebirds. My store was a small one, that sold 1 Firebird in '00-'01 combined. I begged my manager to let me order 5. When we sold them all within 2 weeks of hitting the ground, he said "order as many as you'd like "

We ended up selling 34 for the '02 model year. My father is the proud, original owner of a 9,000 mile Sunset Orange '02 Formula 6 speed...ordered by me, for me...then I chickened out and he bought it

My thoughts: a lot of car buyers are stupid and only care about price. No matter how much better the car could be with additional options, a lot of buyers are willing to forego better engines and options if it saves them a buck. These are usually the same idiots that think no one will notice that they bought a no-option car.

Average American cannot drive a manual. A few years back I was looking for a new BMW 325i. I asked the dealer to give me a manual to test drive. He looked at me like I had 6 heads and said they didn't have any but they could special order it from Germany if I wanted to buy one. LOL! I didn't even know you could get a BMW with an auto and had no idea why someone would do such a thing. Little did I know that's all they'll stock.

You mean they make BMW's with manual transmissions? I knew they do for the M3, but I thought that was the only one besides the older M5's.

Things are weird in Europe, especially on German luxury cars...it's a different market over there. Basically, BMW, Mercedes, and Audi aren't really perceived as luxury brands there. They sell cheaper, stripped-down versions of the same cars they import here. Many of those cars have cloth interiors, plastic hubcaps over steel wheels, and smaller engines that Americans would find completely inadequate. Also many models are offered with manuals whereas here the automatic is standard with no way to get a manual here.

Knowing what I know (which is that any engine with any kind of ***** is going to break a T5), 3rd gen's are one of very few cars that I would actually WANT an automatic in. In fact, the only other car like that in my opinion is the 1984-88 Corvette with the Doug-Nash 4+3(=0 since they never work) manual. I'm sure T5's are great for cars that are always going to be completely stock, but personally I like to have some flexibility.