SOLD!!

1983 Chevrolet Camaro Berlinetta Sport Coupe 2-Dr

Dark Charcoal Grey

for $1,800

The buyer just drove off, at 17:00 on 2001-10-09! Thanks to everyone who expressed an interest, asked questions, etc.

I intend to keep this page and pics around for the amusement of one and all, e.g. friends and coworkers from my deep dark past, back when I first bought the car while working at Prime (aka Pr1me) Computer in 1983.

As of 2001-10-06, I verified that the stereo works, except, as explained below, the "head unit" -- the "head" of the audio system, which is currently a CD/radio, does need replacing. It does not load CDs, nor does the display work, so tuning radio stations must be done by "feel". However, the CD changer, installed in the trunk, still works great, as do the speakers, subwoofers, preamp, etc. Also, the car has a "VIPER" alarm system that had not been previously described below.

5-speed manual, 6-Cylinder, A/C, Power Steering, Power Windows, Tilt Wheel, Cruise Control, T-Bar moon roof.

Audio: 12 speakers including 2 subwoofers in custom trunk lid, "monster" wiring, high-quality preamp, three amps, professional installation, wiring for trunk CD changer. Needs head unit.

Security: "VIPER" alarm system. Power door locks, but they need work: the passenger-side lock doesn't work, probably needs a new "actuator" (approximately $50).

Runs well, well-maintained, reliable. One owner. Some rust, otherwise great condition (see below). 140,000 miles.

Pictures

My wife took these pictures 2001-09-18. Note: They are now scaled down by a factor of four by four (1/16th the file size) to help them fit into a typical browser window. Click on a picture to see the corresponding full-size photo.

Here's the Camaro viewed from its right side. At the bottom of the passenger door, there was some rust and a small hole, but it's been fairly well patched up and painted since we started advertising.

Here's the Camaro viewed from its left, somewhat front side. The picture is a bit blurry, so it's hard to make out that the golden "CAMARO" label between the driver's door and the front left tire has a bit of paint smearing in the first "A". (Note: I removed lots of other golden stripes and labels many, many years ago, so those "CAMARO" labels perhaps can be easily removed as well.)

Here's the Camaro viewed from its front right. You can just make out the body work done on the bottom edge of the passenger door, as mentioned above -- not as smooth as most of the rest of the car. Can't see it in the picture, but some of the paint below and in front of the headlights shows signs of stress -- some interesting curvy cracks. We didn't think it was worth spending time painting over this, as the next owner might want to repaint the whole car sometime soon, anyway.

Here's the Camaro viewed from its right rear. A typical Camaro is a bit "light" over its rear axle, making for difficulty driving in snow, but this one has three pretty big amps and other audio equipment in the trunk.

Here's the "cockpit" from inside the driver's (left) door. The picture is too blurry, but if you can see that row of metal buttons through the steering wheel, you're looking at the Zapco preamp. It's a high-quality preamp, and it has a real volume knob. You can grab and turn it up or down quickly, even if the power is off, unlike one of them newfangled UP/DOWN buttons or knobs that work only when the stereo is turned on. That makes dealing with drive-through window attendants so much easier. Oh, and you can see the LED for the VIPER alarm system on the console between the passenger and driver seats.

A much better view of the "cockpit" and the dashboard. Yes, those are two speakers in the passenger door, just like the driver's door. Add to that two ribbon tweeters in the dash, two 6"x9" (I think) speakers in the bulkheads beside the two rear seats, and the four speakers in the trunk. You can also see the condition of the front seats in this and the previous picture, and compare the somewhat ragged condition of the accelerator pedal to the brand-new floor mats we installed in September 2001. (Just didn't have the heart to leave in the worn driver-side mat.)

The trunk, with the lid open, exposing the two 6"x9" Pioneer speakers and the 10" (or 12"?) subwoofers, plus the subwoofer amp at the bottom of the trunk. The installation was done professionally, but since the blowing of fuses during battery maintenance earlier in 2001, which broke the main CD/radio "head unit", the display and single-CD player don't work properly, though the CD changer and radio seem to work fine.

The trunk, lid still open, exposing the three amps. Dunno the wattage of those two Spectron 602 amps, but, long ago, the installer said the total wattage of the system, including head unit, preamp, and amps, was 700. Since the trunk lid itself is so solid, even though the subs can easily shake the car, there's no big rattling boominess -- once the source material (say, a CD) stops booming, the subs and car do as well. It's a real experience to listen to the stereo, the only downside, one which I've long been used to, being that the sound seems to come from behind, as far as the front-seat passengers are concerned. (Rear-seat passengers can be overwhelmed by the 6"x9" speakers in the bulkheads, so that isn't any better.) But, the Zapco preamp has a "FADER" knob that can mitigate the from-behind effect somewhat.

The trunk is open here. Note the visible wear in the right rear wheel well -- it's fairly representative of the other wheel wells. Dunno whether they need to be sealed up, but if we kept it, we'd probably take care of that.

Here's the Camaro cockpit and dashboard, viewed from straight on. The knob you see just to the right of the accelerator pedal is supposed to switch the audio source from the CD/radio system (an Eclipse, by the way) to a set of RCA cables. I've used those for playing a MiniDisc through the system, but had troubles with grounding or something, so the sound wasn't great, and at one point the RCA's, which used to literally "hang out" in that area, disappeared. Maybe they're back there somewhere, waiting to be rediscovered? Also, that "patch" on the passenger-side dash, where a "normal" car's glove compartment used to be, is where the original Sony car CD player was installed years ago. Originally, where the Eclipse CD head unit is now -- in front of the gearshift -- was a Concord radio/cassette player. That drove me nuts, since it insisted on blasting the radio as soon as you stopped or ejected a tape, not a pleasant experience when it's tuned to the AM band, you're at a McDonald's drive-through window with all sorts of EM interference, you've just been listening to a quiet passage in the Saint-Saens' Symphony #3 so you have the volume turned way up, and your system has 700 watts of power to give to that EM interference! So it was soon replaced by a high-end Nakamichi radio/cassette, with the Sony CD added soon afterwards. That equipment drove me nuts too, as it was all flaky, though glorious when it worked. Later I gave up the cassette cability to have a single, high-quality CD/radio unit in the console, so they patched up where the wiring for the Sony used to go.

Oh, by the way, the HVAC system doesn't work as well as it should -- it rarely actually routes warm air to your feet, choosing to use the defroster vents, and even the AC does that sometimes. Apparently this is a well-known problem in Chevys of that era; despite asking our mechanic many times about replacing the unit, he was never confident that any replacement would actually work. And those problems have existed, to my knowledge, since within a few years of my buying the car. Most importantly, though, the heating and AC do, themselves, actually work; that is, you get cold or warm air, just not necessarily delivered to where you want them.

The front seats and center console. They're in pretty good shape, thankfully! The cloth seats, dark charcoal grey, are quite comfortable; I've slept in the car often, even overnight during a round trip from Boston to Dallas, and, at 6'3", that's saying something!

Another picture from the right rear, though it looks likes the lights are on this time. I don't know what causes those circles visible on the right rear quarterpanel, but they're probably artifacts of the digital camera, maybe even fingerprints -- you can see smaller ones all over the car, plus one just below the passenger door, and I can assure you we don't have strange shapes on our driveway that just happen to photograph as circles from an angle! Very strange.

Here's the battery and part of the engine compartment. The whole point of this picture is to illustrate the "Deep Cycle" battery that's installed. Originally the installers called this a "marine battery", and maybe that's different, but, in any case, the idea was, and still is, that you really don't want to have a 700W, 12-speaker stereo in a car unless you can spend a couple of hours just sitting in it, with the engine off, no road or engine noise, and enjoy listening to the Berlioz Requiem, or Mahler's 2nd Symphony ("Resurrection"), or at least Stravinsky's "Rites of Spring", aka "Le Sacre du Printemps", all of which serve well to demo the stereo. But, after that, you don't want to find your battery drained! Hence the big battery, for which a special "platform" was constructed originally, and was reconstructed (due to the original rusting away almost to nothing) recently.

Another blurry picture from the right front side. Except, this time, it's from a bit higher up, rather than from straight on.

(Hmm...after looking at these pictures and recalling the history and beauty of this stereo, I wonder if we should rethink selling, or donating, this car? Sigh.)

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