I bought a 1988 TA that came from Ontario. It is an ex race car with a CASC plate, odd paint scheme, decal residue from sponsers, roll cage marks, etc. It is also a RPO A4U car which was suppose to be only for the player series, the predecessor to the 1LE option.

I am looking for other 1986-1988 f-body owners with road race cars, and perhaps more information on the GM series.

I am in western Canada, there is not much information on the series or on CASC.

Thanks for your time,
Mark.

 

Check out www.1le.org there are some guys there that keep up on those histories.

RP.

 

There's a 1le.net as well - or maybe it's the same site as mentioned above. Anyway, I think a lot of the owners are in Vancouver and the site has a section on Player's cars.

 

You are the one who bought it from the kid in St. Albert?

 

Very interesting. A couple of years ago I looked at a yellow '88 IROC at a dealer in Hamilton, ON, advertized as a "350" ex-GM Motorsports car. I still kick myself for not buying it ($3800 asking price at the time), since I'd recently bought the car I have now, which was in nicer shape. I disputed the salesman's claim it was a 350, because these were all supposed to be 305's. Anyway, it had the CASC plaque on the firewall and a GM Motorsports decal on the plenum. The carpet had roll cage holes, but the hacked up dash pad had been replaced. I forgot about looking for the A4U code, but it did have the 1LE code in the glove box. It had the 1LE brakes (salesman called them "Corvette brakes"). I always wonder what happened to that car. More recently I saw a guy driving a silver ex-Players T/A in a autocross here. After talking to him, I regretted even more not buying that Camaro, because he said it could well have been Ron Fellows' old car.

Anyway, if I were you, I'd do a search for CASC and see if you can find an email address. The registration number should give the history of your car.

 

It certainly is an interesting find. The body is very rough, looks to be a few bumps and bruises along the way. Perhaps the more valuable part of the car is the history rather than the metal.

I'll probably take the next few months and see what we can learn about it.

Finding a picture of it from it's racing days would be a real treat.

I'll check out CASC. I thought I did that and did not get a response. I'll try again.

Mark

 

Hi Mark_ZZ3,

... Yah I've gone on about the PC cars from time to time I used to watch them alot and knew guys who owned them actually I pitted for one guy who raced on the west coast in particular WestWood -- before it became a suburb.

I spent some time on the track (Westwood) in this guy's '90 TA which I am told is now owned by another guy in BC who has a 383 Lingenfelter/T-56 in it but keeps the 305/T-5 in storage. Now he does auto cross and hill climbs I think he does Knox Mtn, Kelowna. I also talked to another guy from 1le.net who says some of them show up every year at Knox Mtn so you might want to find out more about that -- maybe could find some of your car's siblings. So there is a group of 1LE/PC car owners out west you can check into I'm sure they'd be glad to assist a resto project like yours.

I have some pics that I found awhile ago in my basement they are from races at Shannonville quite the sight about 30-40 PC cars racing around the track would have August '88. Reasonable chance that your TA is in the pack so might even have your car racing never know ? I have been able to find about 10% of the pics I took who knows where the rest got to ? One day I'll dig these out and scan them in. (If you saw my basement you'd understand why I am not in a hurry).

About the roll cages, most were installed by GM dealers which is one of the reasons the interiors were sometimes thoroughly hacked up nobody thought they'd be an item 15 years later. Matter of fact you could pick them up for a song in the early 90s like OLDYELLR I walked from a few PC cars in my case because they had obviously been dented racing and the interiors were in such rough shape. Worst case was when I walked from a brand new unit that they were GIVING away (zero miles and $21k) back in early '91 because I thought their 'shipping and prep' charges were too high. Well I digress.

The good news about the roll cages is they were for the most part, installed by dealers according to GM/CASC/PC specs. Although I don't think it likely you will find an original roll cage I think there is a reasonable chance you can find the OEM specs and build one or have one built. Thats all they did back then, get the specs and start welding -- GM did not (to the best of my knowledge) make any roll cages. So in terms of authenticity, your roll cage need only be built to spec and painted black.

hope this helps,
RP.

 

Thanks for your reply. I know of the group in BC you refer to. I've send a few emails their way as well.

Regarding the rollbars, I found one of the original suppliers of them! I called them up and they can re-create one as they still have the spec's. It's not cheap, but at least I can get one, and like you said, it only has to "look" like the original ones. It appears there were a couple designs as well. A US company and the Canadian one I found.

I'll keep digging. I quite enjoy the challenge of finding information.

I'd certainly be interested in any picture you could scan. I completely understand about the basement project. I spent many days this summer and many trips to the dump and it still is a disaster of stuff.

Mark.

 

If your interested in the players challenge series ... I posted a link to an article I scanned. Here is the link to the post:

https://www.thirdgen.org/techbb2/sho...hreadid=138945

Mark.

 

i have an 89 1le ex players challenge, info is hard to come by, but there are a few here in vancouver,i use mine to run local solo 2 events. there are 3 or 4 ile's that run out here,including some of the guys talked about re; knox mtn hillclimb.
if you can find a store that specializes in automoblia ,there is a lot of info in old Formula magazines,as well as old ON TRACK magazines or you can do a search of your car thru GM ,talk
to frank zapora GM vintage spcialist 905-644-4060,for a fee they can do a search on your car,i had it done, it is very interesting.
io do know that there were only 4 1le's made in 88.
also look at 1le.net ,go in camaro members area 1989,see
karl hunter,s post, he is an excellent racer and has a sweet ride if you do uncover more info please let me know and good luck
boots

 

one thing that i forgot to mention is roll cage.
there are more players cars available than roll cages,as the teams got new models most transfered the cages to the new cars
the players cages were made by only two companies,in the west,davenport race cars,in vancouver,and in the east,by canadian stock cars,i have an original cage and i know where there is another one ,but it is pricey$1500cdn
you can get a new one from cdn stockcar for a bit cheaper. their number is 905-954-0520 newmarket,ontario
boots

 

It had not occured to me that they would have swapped the cages from year to year. Makes sense.

I had already found the shop that makes them out east. $1150 for the complete cage as per the players series spec. Not bad, but certainly not cheap.

The really sad part of my story, might be that the guy I bought it from was the one who took out the cage, side exhaust, etc. and just threw them away ...

I am trying to reach him to see if there is ANYTHING he might have. When I bought the car I did not know it was a race car ... just a rough looking car that looked like it could have been raced.

Mark.