OK.. I called and arranged to go by and look at the car this morning. I met with Brandon Damson (grandson of owner, Jerry Damson), and Rick Hall (employee of the dealership). Both guys I met are knowledable car guys (Brandon is fairly young) and Rick is around 60 and a lifelong Chevy car guy (but neither are 'experts' on the '69 Camaro to the degree of we Camaro freaks on CRG..
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Brandon's grandfather purchased the car 2 yrs ago from the owner of a Gadsden AL Nissan dealership (the car was on their showroom floor for some period of time, and called 'finished'), although Rick told me there were a number of things they did after they purchased it (rebuilt the rear end for one thing), and they exchanged the 'reproduction standard seat covers' for the houndstooth repro interior (to match the installed custom interior door panels). The owner Jerry Damson has owned the Honda dealership here in Huntsville for many years, and before that had a used car lot here in town. He and his son (Deke) have been acquiring quite a collection of 'collector cars' over the past 15-20 yrs. The '69 Z28 was sitting next to a very nice and original '68 Z28, in the midst of nearly forty cars or more? other exrremely nice cars (from woody wagons of the 30's up thru a Ferrari and many many more). I was unable to check over the car very well due to the close quarters. They offered to move it out but that appeared to require moving many cars, so I did not ask them to do that. From what I saw, the paint on the exterior of the car is excellent. I was able to open the hood and look around in the engine compartment. It has exhaust manifolds without the taps for the smog, and the smog is not present. It has a 309 master cylinder - dated 146 or 149 best we could see, but I was unable to read/see the stamped US code and nor could be see the stamped codes on the booster. The ZL2 air cleaner seemed to have the characteristics of an original unit and other ZL2 parts were present. I could not see/read the date on the hood (due to thick paint), but Brandon said he thought he could see a semblance of a number under the paint. The hood latches were painted, and the inside of the lower front valence was in red-oxide primer (no overspray). You fellas have already pointed out a few other things like the battery etc which are incorrect for the timeframe. I wanted to check the rear end date code, but due to the situation was unable to do so, but Rick did bring up the original higher resolution photos on his computer and we tried to make out the full code.. We *believe* it's a BU 0810 or 0819G2 which would be in the correct ballpark date wise and the BU code is right. Rick thought he could make out the 'C' outfront but I couldn't see it well enough to say for certain..? Oh.. Rick had said in his video and verbiage in the ad, that the shifter was 'wrong', but actually it's correct for '69 (round Hurst shifter handle) with chrome knob. They thought it was supposed to be like their '68 Z28, so they thought it was incorrect. Rick and Brandon were very nice and accommodating, and took the comments I made the way they were intended, as educational, and not critical. Rick told me he could probably find out who restored the car before they purchased it. I also pointed out to them that they could learn *almost* all the details of the first gen Camaro on the CRG site and forum. (I say *almost* since we are all still striving to learn more every day)..
If anyone is seriously interested in purchase of the car, I'm sure they would move it out, or put it on a lift to allow full inspection, but I didn't want to ask them to do that just so I could see it (I have one like it already)..
They also allowed me to take photos of some of the other cars in their warehouse storage, which I appreciated. The only two of their collection which is for sale is the '69 Z28/RS and a '70 Cuda with 440 six-barrell (in the same ballpark pricewise).
