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After almost 30 years, I bought my first "new car": a 1987 IROC!
I've been meaning to introduce myself on this forum and show everyone this beautiful 1987 IROC that I found for a while, but I only took some nice pictures of it recently. (I bought this car a couple of years ago, and I joined thirdgen.org shortly after that. This is a great and really helpful website!)
Here is my story ... (If you're not interested in that, just skip ahead to the pictures below).
I have owned a third gen Camaro before. My Dad bought a new 1982 Berlinetta when I was 15 years old (ordered from the factory with the 4-speed manual), and it served him as his commuting car to NYC for several years. I learned stick shift on that car, and I occasionally got to drive it during high school. At the end of college (around 1988), I took ownership of that car as a hand-me-down, and it officially became my first car. It had about 80,000 miles on it at that point but was in mint condition (my family really maintains their cars well). I ended up driving that car until 1997, when the odometer showed 227,000 miles (yes, it had a six-digit odometer). The engine
(which had been rebuilt at 129,000 miles) still ran great, but after 15 years of year-round use in the Northeast, the body had terminal cancer (underbody rust).
I really loved that car, but it was of course pretty slow with the 2.8L V6 (though the stick shift made it more fun to drive than the auto V6). I told myself one day I would buy a higher performance Camaro, which at the time meant an IROC. That probably would have happened shortly after I finished college, but then I entered graduate school. By the time I re-entered the workforce, third-gen production had ended.
After that time, every car I've owned has been a hand-me-down (my family always seems to generate a steady stream of great used cars as good daily drivers). The one thing I never had a chance to do therefore was order a new car from a dealer, with the exact options I want.
So when I found this car a couple of years ago, it was like a dream come true. It seemed like I was finally ordering the new IROC I always wanted.
First of all, it was "like new" -- with less than 3,000 original miles! Second, it had all of the key options I would have ordered back in 1987:
305TPI, a 5-speed manual, G92 (with associated goodies), T-tops, and red paint. In fact, it has RPO code 1SC (Option Package #3), so it's really
loaded. Here is a full list of the RPO codes:
One concern with buying such a low mileage car is that certain systems might have suffered from lack of use. Fortunately, the previous owners had done the proper maintenance (yearly oil changes, starting the car up periodically, etc.) so that I have not had to deal with many problems. In fact, the only significant expense (couple grand) involved in getting the car back to functioning like a new car was restoration of the heating and A/C systems. I did have to fix the radio to work, but I'm an electrical engineer, so that only cost me a couple dollars in parts :-)
The other work was all routine (flushing the fluids, replacing the original Goodyears with new tires, wheel alignment, etc.). The car works like (and feels like) a new car now.
The car is truly a time-capsule, as hopefully you can see from these photos:
Engine compartment with all original hoses:
Shots of interior (I'm in the process of replacing the floormats with some closer to the originals):
Interior with protective seat covers installed:
Gauges -- notice odometer showing 2,991 miles when I bought it (it now has just over 4400 miles on it):
