What was the best part about Dukes of Hazzard? If you said Daisy Duke, give yourself a shwing. If you said the General Lee's welded-closed door entry then check out today's Nice Price or Crack Pipe custom Camaro, you freak.
It turns out one thing that 71.57% of you wouldn't do with yesterday's VW Thing was pay fifteen large for it. While that Thing may have been but a pale shadow of what its original intent was, today's custom Camaro is a rainbow in the dark by comparison.
Described as a Hot Rod Roadster, this one of a kind custom was once a Chevy Camaro, but is now something that the seller claims draws crowds like a public dwarf orgy. Now the Camaro started out, back in the sixties, as a kind of heavy pony car. Once it had its first major redesign, it became one of the prettiest of the horse-set, what with its Snidely Whiplash chrome bumpers and long-hood, short-deck proportions. That however was in 1970, and as the car aged, and was brought into both compliance with increasingly stringent safety and insurability standards, as well as GM's bean-counter mentality, the svelte bumpers and purposeful quad-round tail lamps were replaced with grotesqueries at each end along with the additional heft those additions required.
The Z-Rod is based upon one of those Quasimodo-like Camaros, but benefits from a general lightening, much like Phileas Fogg's balloon in the the film adaptation of Around the World in 80 Days.
That conveyance never made an appearance in the book version of Verne's adventure, and there never was a Camaro that looked quite like this. Missing its roof and a good deal of its front end - giving it a look not unlike a post-operative Roger Ebert - the Z Rod still rocks a nose that is a coda of its Camaro origins, and has all the sass of the world's best film critic. Out back, it still maintains all the dumpy endura bumperness and garish tail lights of its past life, and, in contrast to the changes up front, is somewhat of a letdown in its Depends® undergarment-esque girth.
Hopefully not a letdown is the 454-cid engine/700R4 overdrive transmission drivetrain, which the seller says is good for an eyelid-flapping 135 mph or more. That motor breathes through massive tubular headers and a set of lake pipes for all your auditory pleasure. Bookending each of those white-painted drainpipes are a pair of deep-dish Moons, the fronts unencumbered by any sort of road hazard-containing fender. Inside, the car's Camaro demons have been fully exorcised, with the exception of the pony's three-spoke wheel and steering column. Center mounted gauges and flat seats embrace the ethos of the past while a uselessly low chrome rollbar behind adds a pummel horse option to cabin entry.
That may be the prefered method of egress as even the seller claims this car is not ADA compliant. Much like the General Lee's welded-shut doors, the Z-Rod foregoes traditional portals for an over-the-scuttle approach. That of course will limit its applicability as the vehicle of choice for taking mom to the grocery store, but it will help you gain that shiny ass-sheen you've always wanted on all your pants.
That fashion fix is but $8,000 away, and comes with all the other attributes the Z Rod possesses as well. It's hard to come to terms with that value proposition, but you do need to figure out a way to do so. What's your take on this custom Camaro with both flames and buff-magazine fame? Is $8,000 a price that's nice? Or, unlike the door, would you not jump at the price?
You decide!
Houston Craigslist or go here if the ad disappears. H/T to OA5599 for Z tip!
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