For whatever reason my news feed is becoming full of ancient articles that were published 30-40 years ago.
Here's an IROC related one.

https://www.motortrend.com/features/roc-solid-1989-chevy-camaro-iroc-z-may-1989-982-1412-100-1/

Haven't viewed it yet but I get a kick out of how you folks poke fun at the inaccuracies (should there be any).

 

Agreed. It gets comical watching certain aspects get debated from guys who weren't even active when these cars came out yet bought in year later and become self professed experts, lol.

 

I'm more thinking along the lines of how the articles sometimes misrepresent what was actually the case back in the day.
As for our residents experts, you have to admit there are some pretty sharp people here when it comes the 3rd gen F- body.
Facts and bits of information that I personally have little l pledge of.
One detail that comes to mind is the use of adhesives in addition to the unibody spot welding for added strength and rigidity. Who knew?

 

Oh I agree in that there are some on this board that know more than anyone of us ever will but those same guys have done their homework, have hundreds if not thousands of hours of research and/or had a front row seat during that period. After awhile though you know which posters information you can trust and others you need to question. I havent really worked on Third Gens since my dealership days so I find myself regularly searching here plus I also have the factory service manuals. The last Norwood book has been another good reference book even though my car was a VN car I can look at pictures and see how something originally was done.

Now as far as the magazines from that time go the general public never get to see first hand what goes on behind the scenes and only what makes it to print. During the 90's I ghost wrote and/or checked the technical aspects of my field of expertise for probably the majority of the well known editors and I can tell you that only a very small percentage of those guys had much technical abilities. Many were great photographers and writers however and had basic understandings but they relied on those behind the scenes for their technical information. Magazine content was ad driven meaning if you were an advertiser back in the day a lot of the content was aimed towards your product line and the technical aspects/ details were provided by advertising departments for those manufacturers. That presented a couple of issues in accuracy in that they were often biased towards that product but also advertising departments were much like editors in that they knew how to present a product or story line but the technical content may or may not be exactly accurate.

I remember [ and still have the fax copies] of a well know Hot Rod editor sending me a story to proof and I told him most of it was incorrect and he couldnt print it. Well you know how well that went over so he told me to rewrite it to be correct and he would take it from there. I did and figuring he would then rewrite it in his own style but when it appeared in print it was pretty much word for word how I had written it. A lot of the technical books that were written that covered a wide array of subject were done in the same manner. Our advertising department hated me because a lot of the technical content had to come across my desk before going to print and I rejected/corrected a good bit of it. There is a lot of good content out there but you just have to look at the source.

The issue with the internet these days with everything being sales driven is that Google and other sources pick up on something written many times in the body of an ad or an auction and it gets regurgitated hundreds of times over in other links so folks take it as truth and then gets shared on forums. I miss the days when you could do an internet search for a question and most of what it did bring up was forum links rather than ads for that item.

Didnt mean to derail your post but wanted to answer you with some insight form my perspective. As far as the adhesives I've just recently started using them on some of my projects in conjunction with welding too and I'm sold on the stuff. I've watched videos where the spot welds will rip apart before the panel bond separates and even the metal tears prior. Definitely some cool technology.

 

Derail? Hardly! That was very enlightening.
Vizard had offered some insights into the the tech writing world as well. He reveals a little here and there in the dozens or so books he has written. Seems he was the tech writer and his editor(s) cleaned up the grammar more than anything. I can't say how bound he was to the wishes of the advertising department. But being a contributor to the car magazines of the day, you can bet there was some manipulation of his content.
On a similar note, if you read or watch any of his latest stuff, you'll hear him gripe on how he's been saddled with the "journalist" handle rather than the technical person that he is.

Great back story on your part by the way. That must have been an interesting time.