If you have a 77 Z28 that was/is a 4 speed with VIN 1Q87L7N546475 I believe I have your original tranny. If so, let me know. I'd love to get her back to the mother ship. I'm also posting this in the ODT and BS sections as well.

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Red '75 LT
"We can make it better than it was before..."

Speaking of guys named Gary, I contacted Gary Witzenburg, author of the fine Camaro historical book "Camaro! From Challenger to Champion", and just got a reply from him.

He's back writing about current automobiles now, as opposed to "historical" ventures, and has lost touch with many of the key people involved at Chevy back then. However, he has offered to use the current Chevrolet PR contacts to help track those people down. He's surprised (and pleased !) that there is such a strong interest in this car as exhibited by the strength of this thread, and is going to contact a major collector car publication to see if they have interest in an article on this model! He offered to keep in touch with me, and invited me to contact him in the future.

77 is a long time, but most agencies keep the unused designs/ campaigns to recycle later or just to have, even if they don't have a "record" of them. Though with the amount of space art bards etc would take up from that time period, and that most all marketing material is digital now, there is a good possibility anything that was done has hit the landfill.

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Originally posted by lammy:
is Campbell-Ewald the ad agency?

77 is a long time, but most agencies keep the unused designs/ campaigns to recycle later or just to have, even if they don't have a "record" of them. Though with the amount of space art bards etc would take up from that time period, and that most all marketing material is digital now, there is a good possibility anything that was done has hit the landfill.

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Lammy, yes, that was (and still is) Chevrolet's main advertising agency. Gary Iott has offered to look into this for us, and I just e-mailed Gary Witzenburg to thank him for his interest, and offered him help on this project, as I'm sure any of you would also. Wheels are starting to turn, folks!

Also Lammy, I see you're from Bristol CT... do you recall a guy from Bristol about 10 years ago with a bright yellow Buick Grand National, nick-named "Banana Bob"? I started and ran a New England Chapter of the Buick GS Club of America back then, and met many GS and GN owners at many of the shows we put together back then!

I have long wanted to learn more about how this particular model came to be, who first proposed bringing it back, when, and why, and just what concepts (both in engineering and in styling) were considered for it. Looks now like maybe we'll all learn more about it after all!

I offered Gary Witzenburg access to my colection of literature (Chevrolet factory stuff as well as magazine articles), and informed him of Jeff's beautifully restored car. If and when the time comes, I know all of you who may have something to add to the story will do their best as well.

Very early in this thread, I listed all of the magazine articles and factory (and dealer) literature that I have managed to collect, some only after a few of you gave me info on items that I hadn't listed. If any of you have any such items and check those earlier lists and find items that I didn't list as having, please post them here so that I can be aware of what I may be missing.

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Originally posted by rich m:
Also Lammy, I see you're from Bristol CT... do you recall a guy from Bristol about 10 years ago with a bright yellow Buick Grand National, nick-named "Banana Bob"?. . .

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I've only been in Bristol for 3 years now. 10 years ago I was still living in Higganum. Sorry.

Sad thing is after 3 years, I still don't know anyone in Bristol either LOL!

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Originally posted by COPO:
Rich, when I ordered my 77 Z28 (I still have the written up sheet) there wasn't anywhere on the sheet to specify a stripe delete car. If it was possible I'd have to say that the dealer would have to make a call to the
Plant. Anyways, I think the stripes make the 77, so who'd want to delete it. Same for the radio, my friend ordered his with radio delete cause he wanted a better stereo installed.

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COPO, I agree that the car looked much better with the stripes, but I've always been interested in odd or unusual variations of performance cars and would love to hear about some unusually different '77 Zs as well. As for how to delete the stripes, experiences with other cars that were built suggests that there never was a "delete item" box per se, but rather the dealer put it in a comments section somewhere, I believe.

I bought a 1972 Dodge Demon 340 back in 1977 (with the refunded deposit from my "1 of 18" undelivered '77Z !) and the car was ordered with the optional hood scoop. Years later as musclecar magazines became prolific in the '80s, I became aware that Demons with the scoop were supposed to get a specially coded hood stripe that my car never got and showed no code for. Somehow, the dealer that ordered it managed to "delete" it (it looked better without it anyway!). I've read a lot of stories over the years about cars with deleted items, or built with unusual options that were supposed to be unavailable. That kind of stuff always fascinated me! Still does. When I was big into turbo Buicks (late 80s-mid 90s) I attended many Grand National shows and saw a lot of unusual things done with some of those cars!

By the way, it's great to know that you still have all your original paperwork from 1977! But typically the order sheet the dealer gave you (still have mine as well!) wasn't the form they used to actually order the car from Chevrolet. That was a form that the customer never saw and didn't get a copy of.