"That's another small step for man, one giant leap for mankind"...This would be the first words spoken by Neal Armstrong , as he leap off the lunar lander, on to the Moon, July 20th 1969. This year was recorded in history as "One Psychedelic Road Trip" through American Culture. While troubles worsened for the World, Northern Ireland continued their religious struggle, while the Russians and American's opened the SALT I Talks over disarmament on nuclear weapons. At home, Chicago's Weathermen vowed "to lead white kids into armed revolution", meanwhile Nixon unraveled his campaign promise to withdraw troops while, all the time, he was actually expanding the bombing in Vietnam. A local farmer, Max Yasgur, donated a cow pasture and on Aug. 15th, promoters threw what was to become a legendary rock concert, called "Woodstock A Three Day Music Festival". The concert featured luminaries like The Who, Sly and The Family Stoned, Janis Joplin, The Jefferson Airplane, Crosby Stills Nash & Young, Santana, Arlo Guthrie, Joe Cocker, Joni Mitchell, Joe Cocker, Canned Heat, Country Joe & The Fish and even more. After the first wave of 100,000 people arrived, the promoters realized they had 'lost control' and declared a Free Festival. The Age of Aquarius was at hand, but, this hallmark festival would be followed by the tragic event of Altamont at which the Rolling Stones witnessed a young black man stabbed to death by The Hell's Angel's. On the radio, music ran the gamut with tunes like "Sugar, Sugar" by The Archies" , "Age of Aquarius" by The Fifth Dimension, and "Get Back" by the Beatles . The top LP Albums on the charts were Blood, Sweat & Tears and Led Zepplin II. Best films included "Easy Rider", "Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid", and, one of the first "X" Rated (believe it or not) movies "Midnight Cowboy". November 14th, "The March of Death" brought 250,000 people to Washington, D.C. to protest the War, while over 100,000 marched in San FrancIsco. Dwight Eisenhower, Ho Chi Mihn and Joseph Kennedy all passed on , while Steffi Graf and Bobby Brown all came slugging their way into the World. Penthouse Magazine had come (no pun intended) to magazine racks, the First Jumbo Jet ' flew the Friendly Skies', and the First Automatic Teller Machine was installed at the Chemical Bank in New York City. One last factoid: This was also the year Sen. Edward Kennedy would drive off the Chappaquiddick bridge, and swim off to safety, while poor Mary Jo Kopeccne was free diving at the bottom of the creek.
Many educated buyers of Z/28's have already got a wakeup call by shopping all across America looking for what seems to not exist, a real Z/28. Perhaps, it's because this was the type of car that was run hard and put away wet, ..... so few can be found complete and real. Sadly, for the collector hobby, it only takes a set of badges and a stamp kit to make a plain-jane X-11 coupe into a car that appears to look like a Z/28 but, only the true 'Z-phile' can ascertain if the Trim Tag, motor casting codes, date codes and other tell-take signs truly make the banana eatable. Despite the fact, Chevrolet built 19,014 to 20,302 actual Z/28's (depending on what book you read) very few real one's exist today in one piece. Thanks to books like Alan Colvin's "Chevrolet By The Numbers", you can dissect one of these elusive little cars till your eyeballs fall out. We don't take much stalk in some of the other authors who boast and publish information. Colvin's facts are based on firsthand knowledge, actual G.M. records and cars that actually exist not just 'the opinion' of some self-puffed -hot shot- know-it-all who makes a practice of charging folks $1300 or more to survey their cars and then can't even tell them if they ARE real.
When you try to figure out why the Z/28 has truly become THE cult car, like the 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air , you have to understand the legend. It's not just because it's a one-year-only body design, and possibly the best looking First Generation Camaro ever made but, it is also seen as an official, Certified Milestone Car by the Milestone Society.... by us, as the Most Bang For The Buck in a classic Muscle Car. You need the full story.
The Camaro was developed by Chevrolet as a lot more than just a "me too" answer to Ford's Mustang, or even their very own 'belly-flopping' Corvair. It was deliberately engineered to be a much better, superior car on every level. They succeeded. Right out of the box (1967) Chevrolet sold a respectable 220,906 Camaro's against 472,121 of Ford's Mustang. By 1969, Ford only sold 1,934 Boss 302's while Chevrolet sold 19-20,000+ Z/28's. In the beginning, Chevrolet didn't even list the Z/28 Option in Chevrolet showroom brochures. It wasn't until 1969, that they finally printed a brief mention ( and one side photo) on the next to last page (quote) "....read over our power team choices and pick one that matches your idea of a car. We'll start with our strongest. Z/28 Camaro. This is our mean streak. A tough car to match, a hard car to top. Z/28 is a high performance option package for the Camaro Sport Coupe...".