Were the black IROCs painted satin black in the headlight openings like other colors? Thanks for understanding if this has been answered elsewhere

 

Here you go:

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/hist...t-pockets.html

 

One of the later replies mentions a car show with low mile stock thirdgens and half had glossy headlight buckets... but I wonder what the odds are that these car show type guys polish up the whole car for this show, including the buckets, and over time the buckets just become more and more glossy due to that.

 

They aren't polished up. My car has as much polish as anybody's and mine still shows as a satin finish.

All black painted headlight buckets will be a satin black. The only exception to this rule is on a black car that doesn't qualify for the satin black headlight bucket. An example of this would be a 1988-92 Sport Coupe/RS. They would have body colored headlight buckets, so a black car will get gloss black headlight buckets.

 

I used the Duplicolor brand Black Trim Paint from AutoZone for $6.99 plus materials and I painted my 92 Red Camaro RS. It gave that factory brand new look. Because is trim paint, it gave that satin finish. I bought my Camaro with repainted bumper all red and red fog light delete louvered grille. It looked horrible and I decided to install factory original fog lamps and used the original unpainted black fog light bezel and then I decide to paint the headlight buckets. It looked much better specially with that Nove style rally stripes on the hood.

 

I had my black '91 Z28's headlight buckets painted satin black after I had the paint buffed out this summer to be 100% factory. My 66k mile car had been repainted at some point in its life, likely due to the low quality factory paint of the era. They didn't bother to repaint the buckets in satin black as the car was already black, so I bet they said "why bother?" I bet that happened a lot, even with GM recall repaints.

 

Rustolium makes a satin black that to me appears to be real close to the factory look.

 

I was wondering what cars came with the headlight buckets painted and why? What significance does this paint do for these cars and how would I find out if my car ever came with it? I just don't know why some cars do and some cars don't.

 

Do a search of the History forum and you'll find the answers. There is no reason for the black headlights other than appearance purposes.

 

Ok so no special reason for it then? Just wanted to know if it might be included with the RPO codes somewhere.

 

Black buckets went on Z28 and IROCs (which are Z28s). All of them from 82-92. Any base models, like RS, Sport coupe, etc, didnt get them. Im not sure about Berlinettas.

 

My red '83 Berlinetta had black buckets and trim, my blue '87 Sport Coupe had black buckets and trim. I don't think RS's had black buckets.

edit: I wonder if it had anything to do with two-tone paint? I remember plenty of early sport coupes without two-tone paint, and body colored buckets and trim.

 

Again, do a search. This has been researched and documented and the variables are too many to retype. All Z28s got black headlight pockets, as did Berlinetta's and Heritage Edition RS's. Certain Sport Coupes and LTs also got them, but not all.

 

This is what a factory painted headlight bucket looks like. From my '86 Z.

 

If you really want the answer you can do like scott suggests and search. But it seems like GM saved the black buckets for "premium" cars. Base models didnt get it. RS's didnt get them unless they were "heritage edition", news to me, but Im not at all surprised. Berlinettas were supposed to be "luxury" camaros, not really sure what GM had in mind with that, but whatever. There was probably something on the option list for Berli's that triggered it, maybe the berlinetta option itself.

But as a general rule, it was a Z28 (and Iroc) thing, reserved for the premium cars.

 

I only chimed in, because your first post specifically stated that Sport Coupes did not receive the black buckets. This is the history section, and if you want to state something as fact, it should be correct. That statement is just not correct.

 

As far as I knew they did not get black buckets, most base model Camaros did not.





If there were some that got black buckets then that's great, there are a zillion different variations and special option packages and trim levels on these cars. With sport coupes it's hard to tell since most of the ones still around have been repainted so you can't assume necessarily by ones you see around, you have to go by what you see in period-correct official literature and footage. Sport coupes werent really the center of attention so you dont see much about them. Perhaps there were specific scenarios where they got black painted buckets, but unless it was a simple year to year variation, it was probably some specific option package that triggered it. Base level cars didnt usually get black buckets.

 

--1986--
the 1:11 mark
Chevy promo video. 1986 IROC, Z28 and SC. My '87 was this same color.

--1987--
the 0:40 mark

--1985--
at the 0:06 mark

--1984--
at the 0:07 mark (VERY Strange Commercial)

...also of interest...1987 RS:
https://www.thirdgen.org/camaro_road_test_mt_may_1987

 

My dealer sales brochure from 1986 shows a Berlinetta with blackout headlight buckets, page 14.

The 1988 sales brochure shows a blue sport coupe without blackout buckets but the Z28 has blackout buckets.

The 1991 sales brochure containing the photo montage of Camaros parked in front of Johnnie's Broiler shows a white RS without blackout and a red Z28 with blackout. The white RS on page 8 along with the drop top RS on page 9 shows no blackout headlight buckets. On page 18 of the 1991 sales brochure there is a line about standard Z28 options that includes 'special exterior appearance with black-painted headlamp openings'.

 

Interesting finds. The 87 RS is interesting, but hte 87 RS's are a little different, being california only cars, and in 88 they were only available in Cali, Texas, and Florida. Really strange, but it looks like GM changed their mind on the black buckets on those in the later years.

IM guessing at some point "feature creep" let the sport coupes get the Z28's black headlight buckets. Clearly they didnt in the early years, but obviously that changed somewhere along the line.

I wonder if it was a standard option at some point on all Camaros from 84-87 or so? And then after that they reverted back to it going on mostly Z28s/IROCs?

 

[QUOTE=InfernalVortex;5434397]Interesting finds. The 87 RS is interesting, but hte 87 RS's are a little different, being california only cars, and in 88 they were only available in Cali, Texas, and Florida. Really strange, but it looks like GM changed their mind on the black buckets on those in the later years.

I wanted to add that if your wondering if your 1987 is a true RS it should have the RPO (Z5C) in its SPID which was the California merchandising package for it.