Camaros of this generation were common and cliché for a long, long time. But after 30 years, they’ve finally become uncommon. It was a pleasant surprise to find this one parked at an Indianapolis Dairy Queen. It’s a perfect car to take on an ice cream run on a warm summer day.
I think this Camaro is from about 1990, given the bowtie in the front license plate area. In earlier years, CAMARO was spelled out across that insert. That spoiler doesn’t strike me as original. I thought all Z28s used a lip spoiler that was bolted onto the trunk lid and fenders along the tail lights’ top line. I suppose it’s not impossible to remove it and install one like this with a lot more loft.
Ditch that spoiler and replace those blackout wheels – the original five-spoke alloys were quite attractive – and this old Camaro would be perfect. For me, anyway. I’m sure that the person who owns this one likes it just as it is!
We’ve spotted a few other Camaros of this generation: a Berlinetta, an RS in fine patina, and an in-motion IROC-Z convertible. Paul Niedermeyer also named this generation Camaro a GM Deadly Sin; read about it here.
That spoiler is indeed factory, it was 1991/1992 only. the hood scoops were originally body color but those and the ground effects were but those were unique to those years as well.
People can say what they will about the styling of the third gen F bodies being more sporty than the Fox Mustangs but by their final years Ford’s updates were far better than GM’s in keeping them fresh
Ford used a similar spoiler for the 1993 SVT Cobra, but to my eye pulled it off far better
And relating this back to today’s purple Challenger article, I think one of the few changes in the Camaro lineup between 1991 and ’92 was that a new color was added for ’92… Purple Haze.
The last 3rd gen F body I saw in person was a Camaro RS in that shade. This is very much not my cup of tea type of vehicle, but in that color…
Talk about plum crazy! Although this purple has more red in it (like Minnesota Vikings purple) than today’s featured Challenger which has more blue in the mix (like Baltimore Ravens purple).
I like it. I also liked that 90’s teal these cars came in as well.
I am born and raised Minnesotan. The Vikings reference never came to this mind, but then again, they never have, nor all of the NFL lol. I was always told “You really DO like books” as a kid…
Yeah, I’m not a huge sports fan either, but in this town (Baltimore) you can’t escape the purple… it’s everywhere.
Of course I don’t have actual stats to back it up, but if I were a betting man, I’d bet that 1/2 of the Plum Crazy Challengers that sold were sold here in this area.
So out of curiosity, I compared the RGB codes for the purple used by the Ravens, Vikings, and two college teams that use purple (LSU Tigers and Washington Huskies).
I’m sure this isn’t perfect because colors vary from screen-to-screen, but it looks like the Ravens use the deepest purple among these teams, LSU the lightest, and the others in between.
Not sure what the point of this exercise was, but it’s sort of neat. The Challenger seems closer to Vikings Purple to me.
For those familiar with Gemstones, to my eyes, the Ravens purple is more of a Tanzanite, while the Vikings purple looks more like an Amethyst. Of course, gemstone colors vary widely, so there’s that.
That Challenger from the earlier post today looked bluer in the pictures than the current Retro-Challengers, but like you said Eric, our screens vary quite a bit. The Ravens color on your graphic on this iPad looks way too dark, almost Cobalt Blue, while the Vikings swatch looks perfectly Plum Crazy.
Again, YCMV. 😉
That purple was surprisingly common on the following generation, I think I remember seeing cavaliers and berettas in it too.
And Intrigues and that special-edition Grand Prix with the chrome, vained 300-spoke wheels.
You could get an eggplant-colored Aurora or Eighty Eight or Achieva, too. Yuck.
Well I’ll be damned! Or spoilered. Anyway, I’d never noticed this spoiler on any Camaro before, and frankly it doesn’t look as good as what GM normally designed, so I just assumed it was aftermarket.
And it’s completely forgivable, these latter 3rd gen Z/28s are unicorns(literally, but on the opposite end). These replaced the IROC-Z which briefly replaced the prior Z/28.
This generation is synonymous with the IROC and was an important model for the performance renaissance of the mid 80s, so I always imagined the name shuffling confused buyers, or maybe were turned off by the kitted our nature of these 91-92s that they didn’t sell well, or the quality aspects were so well known they wouldn’t tolerate a superficial refresh of the same old car for two more years. Regardless, late IROC Zs and early 4th gen Z/28s were (and are) way more common.
As badass as the CHP Mustangs were in the ’80’s, they also had several of these in their fleet in the very early 90’s and woe to you if you saw one coming up behind you fast just north of the Grapevine on I-5…
As flawed as they were and as much baggage as they carry (figuratively more than literally), they are certainly a product of the times and scream ’80’s as much as the prior F-body generation in TransAm form screams ’70’s (all in a good way!)
Am I the only one here who would prefer a DQ gift card to a this-generation Camaro of equal value? 🙂
This is better than the “Berlinetta”…Give it another decade and ones like this will likely appreciate in value significantly if the economy recovers enough for the current 50yr-olds that lusted after these as teens to still have disposable income.
But . . . ice cream! 🙂
OK, I will admit that Dairy Queen isn’t really first rate ice cream. But then these Camaros were not really first rate pony cars either. I think I’ll stick with the gift card. If it won’t lead to a growth in value, I can be satisfied with a growth in weight.
If you turn the Camaro upside down, will the spoiler stay on?
No, not on this one anyway
Let’s see… equal value might get you a GrillBurger Combo. Tough call!
A lot of folk, my better-half included, wanted a spoiler as a reversing aid, in the days before sensors and cameras. Also handy for putting your drink on when doing car maintenance.
I’ve often thought that spoilers (particularly the large ones) were only useful to judge the rear corners when backing.
Likewise, as has been mentioned before, although the 1966 Dodge Charger was technically the first car available with a rear spoiler, it was a dealer-installed option. I think the first RPO rear spoiler was on the 1967 Camaro, but it might only have been available as part of the Z/28 package.
I remember when that spoiler debuted I didn’t like it when compared to the earlier spoilers. I think that the Mustang was a better everyday car but the Camaro and Firebird looked more modern even though you gave up usability (and probably built quality too).
I really liked the Formula Firebird in either white or yellow over gray with the stripe kit between the paint colors and those Pontiac aluminum wheels used on many Pontiacs of that era. I am a sucker for hidden headlights (also not very practical but as a kid oh-so cool).
+1 on the yellow over gray Formula. Somehow that combination just looked like it had some “flash with class”. It just didn’t come off quite as overdone as most others.
I’m no fan of these, and I’m in precisely the demographic group Jim references above. I drove and rode in far too many of them when they were new and owned by high school and college friends. The V8 rumble was a novelty at a time when it was scarce in new cars, and yes, they were fun to drive, but all the goodness was wrung out of them by their shoddy build quality. Most of the ones I knew were rattle traps at 2 years old and traded off by the early 90’s (Mostly for Acuras or Hondas).
This is a really well kept example. I imagine the owner prefers the more modern black wheels and taller wing to make a statement that this is a owned by an enthusiast. Overall I think that these were very good looking, better looking than their Mustang competition. And I’m a Mustang owner. It’s just that so many were poorly accessorized and run down until death, which colors your perception of the design. I’ve seen more interest in these lately in the buff books. Build quality may have been poor, but truthfully any 25+ year old car still on the road probably has had most problem areas addressed. There is a lot of potential in these cars if you are the kind of guy that doesn’t mind doing the work. Have you checked out the price on slightly used Mustang GTs and Camaro SS models? Thirty to thirty five grand is a lot of money, but still cheaper than new. I think it makes a lot sense to build your own.
The Camaro made a better case for styling supremecy against the 82-86 Mustangs, but after the aero 87 restyle I think the Mustang starts to give it a run for its money. The Camaro did the longer/lower/wider thing better all along but the there’s more to attractive styling than just that, and frankly the Camaro only truly looked better than the Mustang in its most basic forms, without the ground effects kits and spoilers all submodels(seemed to?) have by the later years. A 91-92 5.0 LX hatchback with the handsome new pony wheels looks better than these late Z/28s, and kitted out the 93 SVT Cobra pulls off what these Z/28 were going for better as well.
I agree though that bringing up build quality now isn’t very applicable, and I’d argue a whole lot of problems boil down to the T tops being more common on the Camaro than the Mustang, and if you can find a solid roof F body it’s probably a much more solid car. Objectively these are better cars for all around performance than their predecessors. The only thing holding them back is the favorable older styling(be it from nastalgia, idealism, or genuine beauty if such thing exists) and unflattering stereotypes – which previous generations did have but managed to overcome.
For the record though, there was no factory produced Camaro SS during this generation. The IROC-Z was the top of the heap
In one of the Car and Driver comparisons, they put it well on why they liked the Mustang better than the 3rd generation Camaro. Although the Camaro put up better numbers, it just wasn’t much fun. The Mustang, while technically slower, was a lot more tossable.
—-Rant Alert—-
This is when Chevy started to ugly-up the Camaro, near the end of it’s lifespan.
Every change made it worse. The wheels, not as sleek. The spoiler, chunky and gaudy. Unnecessary scoops on the lower aero-pieces. There were others, but I forgot many of them, thankfully.
They pretty much ruined one of the best looking American cars of my teen years. In my rarely humble opinion they looked the best as original Z28s and then the IROCs.
It led the way for the ugly 90’s GM stuff like the Achieva and, what was it, the Sunfire? (Or Skyfire/Sunlero/Firesun? Whatever)
Whoever ran GM styling in the 90’s really had no clue.
—Rant Over—-
I would say the Irv Rybicki era (1980s) was overall worse than the following period (Chuck Jordan – 1990s). I will say that the cars were almost across the board slightly uglier than average and dull from the Rybicki admin, while Jordan oversaw some really, really nice examples (Seville, Aurora, S10/Blazer, GMT400 and 800, C5 Corvette, B-Body Impala) and some real, total duds (Achieva, gen-4 F-Body, everything else on the last B-Body, final Ninety Eight, most of 90s Pontiac “excitement”).
Oh yeah, the Seville and GMT400. I like those.
And the Blazer.
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Oops.
Dull yes, but I don’t think the Rybicki era necessarily put out truly ugly product, I think Earl had more truly ugly designs under his watch, even Mitchell had a few stinkers. Ugly cars are sometimes the result of trying new things. To some people the 86 Taurus was hideous when it came out, but it redefined mainstream car design. Irv was a corporate lapdog, under him designs were inoffensive and interchangeable, and no effort was made to push boundaries that would cause other automakers to follow suit like under Earl and Mitchell. There were good looking designs, I think the C4 is a good looking design(I prefer it to the C5) as was the Camaro/firebird. Those cars are let down by their quality, post-malaise era compromises, and American car buyer stereotypes, not their looks. Even the more mainstream cars like the N bodies, yes the formal rooflines were products of their times(though started in the Mitchell era) but they weren’t really ugly, they just looked nondescript next to the million other GM models of the era with the same styling.
The problem with the 3rd gen Camaro is it realistically wouldnt have looked out of place if it debuted in 1978, it was evolutionary off the second gen design – same body crease on every Camaro since 67, same tri-color taillight shape introduced in 77, same style spoiler introduced in 72, same bubbleglass rear window introduced in 75, even the early Z/28 wheels were basically a squared up version of the 80-81 wheel design. All that was majorly different on the third gen was the old curves were straightened out and it sprouted quad rectangular headlights In a sloped facia…. like a 1976 Monza. Ever see Airplane 2? Most who remember it think it’s a bad movie that doesn’t live up to the original, but when you watch it you’ll probably laugh at most of the gags… Why? Because most of them are directly recycled from the original! That is the third gen F-body(and most Irv Rybicki designs) in a nutshell: A safe retread of Mitchell era tropes
I’m not a huge fan of the fourth generation but the Camaro at least tried to make that major change like the 1970 had done from the first gen. That was the difference between Chuck Jordan and Irv Rybicki, Chuck ran design like the greats did, unfortunately by the time he was at the helm it was far too late.
I hope the driver had a mullet worthy of the car.