Speaking for the last two years of my search - I can definitely say these base model cars are incredibly difficult to find in an original state. I've tracked a few ideal cars down but the owners aren't willing to sell and really, who can blame them. I look across multiple sources, multiple times a day, and they seldom come up for sale. When they do, they fall into a few categories:
- Genuinely nice original cars which usually sell quick (very rare - maybe two a year that I've spotted)
- Fluffed cars
- Scary body work from an older resto
- Too many changes from original (colour change, engine swaps, etc)
Unfortunately, because I've been looking for an extended period of time, I'm now at the point where I've seen cars that were nice and original however sold quickly at the start of my search come back up for sale in a totally modified state; think nice original 6 cylinder car with LS/6 speed conversion and ran through the auctions countless times, etc.
To add some numbers to this discussion, speaking for 69 only which is what my search is focused on and is probably the hardest to find a base car of (lots turned into COPO clones, pro-touring builds, or simply used as a daily driver and rotted into the ground/junked/totalled, etc)... If we consider what engine option makes a car a base model (non-SS, non-Z28, non-COPO):
L26: 230ci
L22: 250ci
L14: 307ci
LF7: 327ci
L65: 350ci
LM1: 350ci
In total, there were 186,785 base models produced. Total 69 Camaro production was 243,085. This means ~77% of all 69 Camaros were base models - effectively 3 out of 4 cars. I bet you will not see this reflected in the market today with the flood of near everything being a 'genuine' SS, Z28, etc.
Nevertheless, my search continues. Friends have started calling me a base model connoisseur as they think I might be the only person who has spent this long looking for a base model of any car LOL.
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